


Rain in the Desert

by Setaflow



Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: AU in that I’m changing specific details but the broad strokes of the story’s the same, Can be read either platonically or romantically but tbh it leans more towards platonic, Canon-Typical Violence, Enemies to begruding partners to actual partners to friends to found family, Gen, Generous use of swearwords, Hurt/Comfort, My main goal with this is to get 16-25 year olds into the same Dad Rock I listen to, My other goal is to use ‘fuck’ so many times that it loses absolutely all meaning, Nomad V (Cyberpunk 2077), These are more…vignettes with overarching themes throughout, and learning how to move beyond the tragedies of their pasts, but if you’re into angry people finding solace in each other, in which 'rockerboy' (derogatory) eventually becomes 'rockerboy' (affectionate), platonic love is just as important as romantic love and I WILL die on this hill, then boy howdy am I your fic author
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-15 15:00:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 34,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28815288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Setaflow/pseuds/Setaflow
Summary: Because the Herculean burden of being human can’t be satisfied with being anything but the most heart-wrenching experience of your life. It demands empathy without any reward, forgiveness without any justice. Being human requires you to chug along and drive onwards, even when everything you are is screaming to stay behind. Being human means not only being able to accept change, but not fearing it, either.And “human” is something Johnny Silverhand is decidedly not. Not in a straightforward sense, at least.But if V can’t accept change, what does that make her?_____________________________________In which a former nomad and a dead rockerboy have to learn how to live again.
Relationships: Johnny Silverhand & Female V
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14





	1. A Horse with No Name

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome to a fic literally a year and a half in the making.
> 
> In this story, V’s around 24 and has been living in Night City for about a year and a half. This is also, erm, “loosely” following the broad plot of the game, but things have been changed to suit my own V’s personal journey. Here's a quick index of things I've changed:
> 
> \- The Heist: Plays out as it does in game except Dex doesn’t cut a deal with Arasaka/Takemura to off V, instead shooting them solely to cover his own tracks. Likewise, Takemura pulling V from the junkyard does not happen, and he doesn’t become a player in the story until later.  
> \- The Samurai Jacket: Has it’s own backstory different from the game’s. Aligns more with the E3 2019 Cinematic Trailer in the sense that V has the jacket from the start and Rogue doesn’t gift it to them during a side mission.  
> \- Adam Smasher: No spoilers, but let’s just say he doesn’t simply stay in Arasaka Tower the whole game.  
> \- OG Cyberpunk Lore: Certain things’ll lean more heavily towards the original TTRPG lore than the game’s

_Plink_

_Plink_

_Plink_

_Plink_

V had stopped counting the drops of water falling from the showerhead sometime after the fiftieth one or so. She fills the time by staring at the filthy tiles under her feet, head braced up against the wall, eyes unfocused as she listens to the rain shell the motel. The roof is thin, the walls even thinner, so the weather seems to be throwing itself at the building with the intention of caving the entire goddamn thing in. A part of V wonders if it would succeed; a smaller but no less vocal part wonders if she wants it to succeed. Her mother had always said she wore fatalism like an old pair of boots.

_Plink_

_Plink_

God, her head was still killing her.

V habitually goes to rake fingers through her hair and yet is still surprised when her hand meets the prick of her freshly-buzzed scalp. She isn't able to bite back a sigh in time when the reality of the situation at hand collapses back on her shoulders. So she screws her eyes shut instead. Loses herself to the sounds of the acid rain howling outside and the remnants of her shower dripping down the drain.

_Plink_

_Plink_

_Plink_

"Move," it means to come out as a request but still sounds like an order. It still takes her another thirty _plink_ s for V to get her ass in gear and step out of the shower, her thoughts swirling at a dozen miles a minute.

Emotions were never exactly her thing. Now guns and bikes, those are her thing. Could've been the reason that her and Jackie clicked as well as they had that one night in the Badlands— one former nomad with a penchant for stirring shit up and blowing shit apart, one ex-Valentino hiding a soft side under all those gold-plated glocks and cyberware. Their one job together all those months ago was supposed to be it. V didn't even expect to get along with the man, nevermind become business partners with him.

How many days had it been since the heist? Two? Three? Took a full day to get to where she is now, so it must've been at least that long, right?

Have they found Jackie's body yet? Is he still rotting in that Delamain where she left it? Did Dex get his hands on him? Is he in that landfill and she just hadn't seen? Why did she tell that fucking car to stay put!?

Oh god, who's going to tell his mother?

_Breathe._

All the sudden, there's an overwhelming urge to sob that she hasn't felt for years and years. V grips the edges of the sink so tightly she surely would've crunched the sides into dust had she possessed the cyberware for it. "Breathe," she tells herself, orders herself. She can hear her blood pounding its ferocious answer in her ears, a taunt in all but name.

" _Ain't ever no rain in the desert, Miss. V,"_ Mr. Haskins told her once when she was fourteen, after she'd wrecked her bike on a training raid and he'd essentially had to build her cybernetic leg up from scratch. The pain had been so intense that V'd split her own lip from biting down on it, yet crying was off the table. Always had been: " _You can hit me, curse at me, do whatever takes the pain away. But don't you ever cry, Miss. V. It's like rain in the desert— what do it do?"_

" _...N-not a d-d-damn th-thing."_

" _Atta girl."_

And that spells a death sentence for the bathroom mirror as V's fist comes pounding down on it. It doesn't crack like the one in the No-Tell Motel did but it does ground her, roots her in the present. She exhales, shifting her weight from one side to the other, as though to remind herself that she's still actually standing on her own two feet.

V's eyes drift back to the mirror. There are still bits of sand stuck in the wiring on her face, which she picks at with her fingernails to no avail. A pinkish sheen is all that remains of her old hair after she'd clipped it all off, blending clumsily into her natural brown (through the clusterfuck inside of her head, V vaguely wonders if she should dye it again). Orange eyes meet their reflections, then trace the scar in her eyebrow, the one down the length of her nose, and the one in her lip from all those years ago. There isn't a chance in hell she's going to keep that eye color, which really goddamn sucks, because V _likes_ that eye color. She adds that to the long list of things that Vik was going to have to fix if she manages to sneak her way back into Night City again.

 _When_ she manages to sneak her way back into Night City again.

A day's walk through the desert is good for a bit of reflection if nothing else. V's head had been a runaway train of thoughts and memories— some that had made sense and some that were far from. What'd started as an almost-animalistic fight or flight response had rapidly boiled down to mad ravings brought on by hunger, stress, an unholy amount of pain, and something else V couldn't even begin to wrap her head around. Memories of Jackie's cold body in the back of their escape ride, the sheer horror of staring at her death down the end of a loaded pistol, the feelings of desperation as she'd crawled from that mountain of trash and fled into the cold night, slowly simmering into an icy terror the further she stumbled into the Badlands, until she simply couldn't piece together reality from fantasy anymore.

V takes another slow breath, feeling the sensation of cold air slide in and out of her lungs. It feels so human in a way she's never given a lot of thought to before. What's more human than drawing air, after all?

_Plink_

_Plink_

_Plink_

_Plink_

There'd been so much blood on her face before she washed up.

With dreamlike slowness, V tilts her head to the left. There, right behind her ear, is a blinking yellow light from the Relic chip she'd inserted into her neuroslot.

She's almost forgotten about her newest scar: the one on her forehead, a small and insignificant little thing now. Several days ago, that'd been a wholeass hole through her head. Several days ago, she'd awoken in a junkyard on the outskirts of Night City and clawed her way through the Badlands to this motel, and by then it'd just become a teeny nick, like she'd smacked her head on a doorframe. A few days come, V suspects the only thing she'd have from it will be a small mark and the headache. It made sense. V'd be more surprised if she _didn't_ have a headache after surviving what'd essentially been an assassination attempt.

 _No one should've been able to survive a point-blank gunshot like that_.

She's found that thought rattling about in her head a lot, lately. A loose penny at the bottom of a wallet.

But she's thinking about it too much. Thinking had never been her strong suit, something V'll free admit to. She leaves thinking to people like Wakako and T-Bug; hell, even Jackie's better at forming strategies than she is, because his don't usually blow up in their faces like hers do. V's the doer. That makes three things she's good at: guns, bikes and socking gonks in the jaw.

Well, looks like she's going to have to do the planning for all of them now.

V pushes herself upright, wincing slightly as her cybernetic right leg seizes in protest. Poor thing's looking worse for wear than she's ever remembered seeing it, the protective plating almost all fallen off by now and some assorted wires sticking out from the joints. V flexes it, rolling her metal ankle and double-checking it's connection at the mid-thigh is secure, before determining that her leg'll survive without repairs long enough to get her where she needs to go. She pulls a threadbare towel off the rack, wraps herself in it, and opens the door to the bathroom.

Thunder rumbles as she steps out, making the windowpanes rattle. There's not really much to this dank and teeny motel room save for the bare necessities. A bed, a nightstand, a TV that's catching way more static than news, a lamp that sputters in sync with every thunderclap outside, and a lone window with the shutters cracked. Her suit and shirt sit in a bloodied pile in the corner of the room, as far out of the way as physically possible, while a fresh set of clothes she looted from an abandoned car lie on the mattress. V first tries the TV, hoping to catch any news about her situation, but she can't get the damn thing to clear up in this storm. Miffed, she settles for peeking out the window and surveying her surroundings instead. This small town she stumbled into is blanketed in a watery yellow smog, the buildings quaking as storms pound them from all sides. V has a good view of the road from this side of the motel, but no one would be crazy enough to risk trekking through this much acid rain in pursuit of someone, even if that someone was the most wanted woman in Northern California. The thought's not really a relief— more of a reassurance. She's got time, at the very least, and she can do something with that.

In the corner of her eye, something flickers into view. V flinches, relaxes, then tenses up all over again when she realises what, or who, it is.

Guess privacy's a long-lost cause nowadays.

He leans one shoulder against the wall, watching the deluge outside with what V could only describe as both interest and disinterest at the exact same time, like he's only posting as her (their?) lookout out of very old habit. His arms are crossed, silver over skin, two fingers drumming impatiently on his left bicep. He wears maroon leather pants, a pair of steel-toed boots not unsimilar to V's own, and a bulletproof vest with the logo of his band painted over the back of it. The man's face is marred with scratches, scars, and some stubble, bearing the expression of someone who just stepped into fresh dogshit on the sidewalk. Even though those sunglasses hide his eyes, she can tell that he's looking at her the moment he appears. Studying her, gauging her, like she's some petty, desperate crook he's got cornered in an alleyway.

V stalks right past him, practically daring him to say something. When he doesn't, she moves onward, feeling a pang of something akin to disappointment but not quite that. Resentment? ...Nah, not that either. Whatever it is, it's childish, and V knows it, but she can't find it in her to give a crap at this point. There's a line in her brain of things she can handle and things she can't— V blew clear past that line the moment Dexter DeShawn made the mistake of stabbing her in the back.

As V approaches the bed where she'd lain her clothes out, she glances over her shoulder. The man isn't looking at her but somehow she can tell that he _is_ , and frankly it's doing nothing but pissing her off even further. "A little privacy?" she grits out, shimmying her bra on.

"I'm not even looking at you," the man defends himself.

"Don't give a shit. Turn around before I make you turn around."

There's a grunt, then more silence. V turns back to the bed and grabs her top; she no longer senses any eyes on her as she dresses, and it's the first ounce of relief she's felt in a few days.

There's no real acknowledgement between the pair of them of what transpired over the past twenty-four hours. When V came to in that junkyard, he was there too, sitting on a rusted bumper. When she walked through the Badlands, she could see him dogging her steps out of the corner of her eye. It leaves V to put most of the pieces together herself, because the man's not exactly friendly and taking a bullet to the head had left her—to say it kindly— a bit frazzled.

The man before her is someone she's familiar with, though just in passing. Greasy black hair. Dog tags from a war her great-grandparents fought so long ago. A pompous, holier-than-thou attitude than V used to beat out of the younger kids in her clan and then out of the fuckboys she'd met in Night City. He's a man that ninety-nine percent of the world would kill to meet, for better or worse.

Johnny Silverhand.

V's first thought is that Kai would've done anything to be here with her right now.

She laces up her second boot as her mind wanders back to her great-grandfather's leather Samurai jacket, safe and tucked away in her closet. A part of her wishes she'd brought it along, if only for the stability it offers. On the other hand, she finds herself feeling awkward about wearing Samurai clothes in front of the man behind it, whatever reaction that would elicit. V doesn't do awkward well, never has, so she stuffs her thoughts into the "process later" corner of her brain and pushes herself upright, positioning herself back on the window's other side.

Still no signs of life outside. The most movement she's seeing is the "no" part of the "no vacancy" sign buzzing in and out. There's not even a light on in the CHOOH2 station across the street, nor the small apartment complex down the way. She's safe. ' _For now'_ sits on the tip of her tongue, and V's determined to make sure it stays there.

"There's no one coming," Silverhand echoes her thoughts a few feet away. She manages a stiff nod as courtesy to show she's heard, understood, and agreed. Mustard-colored stripes of light fall over his body, though V's quick to notice that he casts no shadow.

He's not real. He can't be real. The real Johnny Silverhand...died, disappeared, whatever, over fifty years ago. If he was really here, standing before her in this motel room, then he'd be a wrinkly old mess at this point. The man before her is no older than his mid-thirties, with a visible lack of de-aging augmentations and cyberware. At first, V thought she was just imagining him, but the more of him she began to see, the more doubt crept in like water trickling into the cracks of a stone. Still, he seems lucid, in a way. Lucid enough to know who he is and to hold a conversation with her, yet not corporeal enough to be physically right next to her. Half of her wants to throw something at him to see if it would bounce off his temple or pass through him like a hologram.

"What are you?" V finally asks, bluntly.

Silverhand shoots her an annoyed look over those sunglasses (god, who wears sunglasses indoors?) before glancing down at his right hand. "I'm here," he says vaguely.

V feels a flash of annoyance so intense she's sure her temperature spiked by a few degrees. "I got that, shit-for-brains. But what are you and why are you following me?"

"I'm not following you," Silverhand's voice is husky and monotone, disused like a machine abandoned to the elements.

"Sure looks like you are."

Frustration bleeds into his words this time, "Even if I wanted to follow you, and I have no goddamn interest in fawning after some foulmouthed, teenaged corpo-type who's convinced a chip on their shoulder's better than a working brain—"

His words aren't the most cutting thing V's ever heard but she didn't get where she is— well, was— by letting people walk over her like that: rockerboy or otherwise. "You've got some fucking nerve to talk about me like that," she seethes.

"What're you gonna do? Punch me? Shoot me?" Silverhand's sarcasm alone nearly pushes her over the edge that time.

"I could take this chip out of my head."

It's an empty threat if V's ever heard one. She only knows two things for certain; that this Johnny Silverhand replica is stored on this chip, and that this chip is the only thing keeping her alive at the moment. V's can't tell if she'll drop dead the second she yanks it out, especially considering she's still unsure if this miracle chip is still stitching her brain back together. Her insides give an uncomfortable heave at the very thought.

Silverhand's expression all but confirms he knows V's just spouting hot air, "Sure, rip out the foreign bit of tech you just shoved into your head a couple of days ago. Bet that'll end well."

V glares at him but she can't cobble up a good counter-argument, so she holds her tongue and says nothing.

A bout of silence stretches out between the pair of them. It doesn't last long enough.

"Where even are we, anyway?"

V chews on her bottom lip in deliberation before answering him. "About twenty-five miles southeast of Night City," and boy howdy, can she feel each and every inch of that in her poor feet. She'll be picking sand out of the wires in her leg for eons at this rate. "Old shantytown close to the border. If Arasaka wants to bother coming after me, they're gonna need to pull strings with the Snakes to figure out where the hell this place is."

An odd look crosses over Silverhand's features. "Yeah," he agrees after a beat or two, sounding miles away from the conversation at hand, "no one would ever think to look for you out here."

"Yeah, that's what I—"

She blinks and he's gone.

She blinks again and she's falling backwards.

In an instant, the motherfucker managed to reappear behind her and sweep her legs out from under her, unseating V with ease like she's the greenest merc to ever exist. V hits the floor hard, stars bursting in her eyes the second her head connects with the linoleum. Her astonishment at the fact that he can actually _touch her_ is stamped out by the heel of his boot coming down on her neck, leaving V gasping for air as Silverhand leers over her.

"Alright, who do you work for!?" he screams at her, hands curled into fists. "You work for Arasaka? Trying to sell that tech out to a competitor?"

Frantically, V shakes her head as best she can, sputtering out a cough. When clawing at his boot proves useless, V clutches his ankle with both hands in an effort to push him off, but lack of oxygen is rapidly sapping all her remaining strength.

"Thought you could use me to further your own corpo-rat agenda, then?" Silverhand rambles on, indifferent to her struggles. "Well, I'm not anyone's bargaining chip, nevermind one for a goddamn corpocunt like you."

"I...don't...work for...Ara...A-Arasaka!" V wheezes in desperation. "I...swear…!"

His response is pressing down harder on her throat. "Fuckin' typical," Silverhand snarls.

Black's creeping into the edges of her vision now. V struggles to find the words to help herself but nothing comes out, her mouth opening and closing like a beached fish and the words unable to escape from her. V's grip on Silverhand's ankle's growing slacker by the second—

Wait.

She can grip his ankle. She can touch _him._

With the last of her remaining strength, V forces herself to go entirely supine, then drives her right leg in an upwards arc. Her foot comes up and around, spearing Silverhand in the lower back. It's not the most effective method of breaking a chokehold, sure, but V does manage to learn two things from it.

One: despite her scrawnier build and the fact that he's a dirty scumbag who cheated his way into an upper hand, she's just as strong as him.

Two: even if there's not a lot of power behind it, a metal foot to the lower back is still just that— a metal foot to the lower back.

Silverhand, caught off-guard, staggers, and the pressure on her throat weakens. In his moment of distraction, V immediately hooks her right leg around his left, re-establishes grips on his legs, and twists herself as hard as she can. Down he goes, landing hard enough to stun him, and V takes advantage of the mess to scramble away from him on all fours.

He's up in a flash. His glasses have fallen off and he's rounding on her with enough fire in his eyes to burn the city down a second time over. Silverhand raises his fist but can't bring it down before V shrieks out; "I'm not with Arasaka, you fucking lunatic!"

On that one, he hesitates. Silverhand's chest heaves from the effort it took to wrestle with her, so it's V's guess if he actually believes her or just needs time to catch his own breath. "I saw the suit. Saw your partner in that cab. I know you had someone with insider info, too," he accuses between pants. "They pay you a whole heap'a eddies to rob big bad Saburo under his nose? And for what: a power grab?"

V can hardly believe what she's hearing. "Are you goddamn insane?" V demands. She rises to shaking hands and knocking knees, gasping for air like she's just gotten baptised at the world's most drown-happy megachurch. "It was a _disguise!_ For a _job!_ A job my friends just fucking _died for!_ "

A shadow of understanding flickers and disappears over his features so fast V wonders if she imagined it, "People die all the time in Night City. Your choom ain't no different; them's the facts."

V yanks up the leg of her pants, revealing her bare-bones cybernetics. "You look me dead in the eye and tell me either of us looked corpo," she hisses.

Again, Silverhand hesitates, pursing his lips so hard he appears to be trying to swallow his own mouth. "You look like a half-baked Morgan Blackhand-wannabe," he finally admits after a cursory once-over, that goddamn smirk making a reappearance, "but sure, maybe you don't look corpo. "

"If I was working with a megacorp, I wouldn't be going through a fixer and a doll," V argues further, leaning against the wall of the motel to take some of her weight off her aching feet. "I'd have people who could've pulled that shit for me. And I definitely wouldn't've gone through middlemen like Dexter-cocksucking-DeShawn."

And Silverhand laughs. It's a coarse and grating sound, akin to sandpaper against rusted metal. Massaging the place where she kicked him, he saunters towards the window once more as though he hadn't been trying to crush her neck like a NiCola can a mere thirty seconds ago. "More than anything, your complete dearth of corpo knowledge might've just sealed it," he tells her. "Corpos got no qualms with using edgerunners. Do it all the time; they don't care if the middleman gets offed, so long as they come out on top. But you aren't a middleman, are you? You're just the poor nameless soul who got roped into all this."

V feels her face redden. "I know who _you_ are," she spits. "Johnny Silverhand. Former CAC war vet, turned frontman of a shitty band, turned terrorist who nuked half a million people. Add 'guy who tries to kill people he shares three sentences with' on top of all that, and you've got a pretty preem resume, dickwipe."

He grins fully at that, and V's temper flares brighter when she realizes it's mostly one of pride, "And you are?"

"Name's V."

"V for…?" he makes circles with his metal hand, a prompt for her to continue.

"Just V."

"What kind of name is 'V', anyway?"

"None of your fucking business."

He holds his hands up in surrender, returning his attention to the window, and an uneasy hush stretches out in wake of their scuffle. It's another minute until V flops on the bed, sliding her hands over her head.

Okay. She needs to get back to the city, get this infernal chip out of her head, and she needs to do it fast. What were her options? Think, V. Think like your life depended on it.

Vik's obviously the first and best choice on that one, considering she's going straight to him anyway, but untested Arasaka tech might be a bit beyond his expertise (or worse, his paygrade). Who else did that leave? Could be Wakako has someone in the Tyger Claws that'd be able to help her, though V'd rather chew glass than place her life in the hands of a Tyger-aligned ripperdoc. Would Evelyn Parker know anyone? This was her job, after all. V'd chance calling her right now but there's no way she's risking her newfound anonymity by ringing her holo. Parker could see V calling, not answer, and instead take the news straight to Dex; that Judy Alvarez girl could do the exact same, even if V believes that would be more unintentional than deliberate—

"Will you quit that?"

V pauses, her stare burning holes in the back of Silverhand's vest, "Quit what?"

"That thing you're doing with your head and your hands. You look ridiculous."

"What, am I annoying you?"

"Obviously," he says without as much as a glance backwards, "or else I wouldn't've said anything."

So much for getting the thinking done for all of them, then. "Bite me," V snarks back, albeit under her breath.

Silverhand's probably heard her, but he doesn't acknowledge her if he has, "So what's the plan, then, _V?_ "

She doesn't miss the snide way he says her name but absolutely refuses to humor him by retaliating. "I'm going to jack one of those cars out there and take it back to Night City. Guess that means you're along for the ride whether you like it or not," Silverhand's body language plainly says ' _I don't and I_ will _make it your problem',_ but V's far beyond caring about his opinions anyway. "Then, I'm going to pay a visit to my ripperdoc so I can get you out of my head. That way, we're both happy. I can...let's call it 'follow up' with my fixer, and you can go back to being a murderous douchebag living on a broken piece of technology."

"Broken?" there's a hint of confusion in his words that V can't place.

"Yeah, broken. Thing was all silent until Dex almost killed me, and all the sudden I got you bitching away in my ear and following me through the desert like a vulture trying to pick at my not-quite-dead bones."

Silverhand scoffs at that, the gears in his left arm clicking as he flexes his hand. "Denial's not a great look on anyone. Not even for gonks like yourself, kid."

There's a pang of unease in her gut at his tone. "What do you mean?" V demands, soft but urgent.

"Chip's not broken, did it's job just fine. You didn't cheat death by the skin of your teeth. You died, V."

…

…

... _No_.

"Fuck you," V mutters. "Don't you fucking lie to me."

"And she doubles down," Silverhand tuts to an imaginary audience. "Damn shame, really. I was beginning to think she was smarter than that."

Jumping up from the bed, V storms over and spins the man around. His overall expression is pleased, proud even, but there's an undercurrent of sympathy just barely peeking through it that makes V sick, and try as she might, she can't disregard it, "You're just...I mean, y-you don't get to appear out of thin air and start messing with my head. You're dead, and I'm not."

"You're not dead now _,_ but you _did_ die. Don't know why you're so up in arms about it. Wasn't even that painful— bullet to the head and then sweet nothing. Know people in Night City who'd've killed for even half that."

"How the hell would you even know if I died or not?"

"Because I watched and felt you die, same as you watched and felt me die. And trust me, I know _my_ death wasn't exactly pleasant."

Each word hits her individually like the back of a hand across the face, over and over again. V takes a step back on legs that won't support her, "Those weren't memories," she pushes the words out by force, shaking her head. "That was just a weird—"

"A weird dream you had?" Silverhand finishes for her, a malicious glint in his eye. "So none of that was real, then? Arasaka Tower? The nuke? Spider Murphy? Adam Smasher? Saburo firing up Soulkiller on my ass? All that was make-believe? Even you aren't dense enough to believe that."

Another step back. V can feel the ghost of Silverhand's boot over her throat; either that, or she's struggling to breathe again.

"You're worse than a corpse— you're a corpse that's in denial, which just means you've still got a foot hanging in the grave. And that makes you nothing but dead weight."

V's fingers brush against the newest scar on her forehead.

For the very first time, she wonders why she hadn't found any signs of an exit wound when she shaved her head.

"I...I…" the word keeps coming out of her mouth over and over like a scratched record as flashes of the memories— her's and Silverhand's— come flooding back to her.

She died.

The revelation sends V reeling to the floor.

Well, in truth, she takes another step and trips over the corner of the bed, sending her sprawling over the ground for the second time in ten minutes. Too delirious to rise, V simply lays her head back and stares at the roof, listening to the storms howl mournfully outside.

She died. She didn't make it to the major leagues; she knocked on the door and got shot through it for her troubles. But she's not dead now. Against all odds, the Relic chip dragged her, kicking and screaming, back to the land of the living.

In a moment of anguish, V places a hand over where her heart is.

It's a few seconds before she recognizes that it's in fact still beating under her fingers.

The rhythm's slow but steady, grounding her somewhat. V sucks in a deep breath by force and does nothing except watch the ceiling fan make slow circles overhead, feeling the sound of her second life pumping under her palm.

A few minutes come and go, and Silverhand's stayed quiet for most of it. Just as she thinks it, of course, he reforms in a mass of silver and blue data lines on the edge of the bed, staring down at her with quirked eyebrows. His sunglasses are back on, but the twinge of annoyance V feels at it is welcome. Something normal and familiar she can cling to while her world flips upside down.

"I need to get to Vik's," V announces, breathy.

"Vik's?"

"Viktor Vector. My ripperdoc," he snorts at his full name, though V'd be kidding herself if she said she didn't do the same first time she heard it, "He'll know what the hell's wrong with me."

"Don't get why you don't believe me. I'm not lying to you."

"Forgive me if I don't believe the man who just tried to crush my throat doesn't have my best interests at heart."

His scowl deepens but he offers nothing else. Silverhand's digital foot taps the ground a few inches away from her ear, so V can hear the tense _tap-tap-tap_ of it bouncing off the tile (strange how it can still produce sounds from something not really there). Slowly, V pulls herself to her feet, weighing her choices. Her first instinct is saying fuck all to the room and the weather, going outside, jacking a car now, and booking it to Night City before the sun rises. Her first coherent thought after that tells her that that's stupid and liable to get her killed, and if Silverhand's telling the truth, she's had enough of dying for the past few days.

So down to the mattress V sinks. With elbows propped on her thighs, V stares at the space between her feet as she holds her head in her hands.

She needs to sleep. That's a simple enough step. An insane part of V's mind is fighting her on it, however, like it fears she won't ever wake up if she does.

" **Jesus Christ, just get some rest, Sleeping Beauty. Your ripperdoc's not going anywhere; he'll work this out tomorrow."**

V jolts up. Silverhand's nowhere to be seen, but his words rang loud and clear through her head like he was right next to her. She even has the aftertaste of his arid tone on the back of her tongue.

"I'm not…" the start of her sentence withers the instant it leaves her mouth. V shakes her head in disbelief, "I'm arguing with dead air. This is insane."

" **You got one thing right— this entire thing** _ **is**_ **insane,"** Silverhand's disembodied voice comes through like flatulence at a funeral: completely inappropriate and totally unwelcome. Fuck, is she seriously stuck with this until she gets back to Night City? " **Now stop your whimpering and go to bed. It's bad enough I gotta deal with that dying bullshit, I don't need a twenty-four-seven subscription to 'Whiny Bitch F.M.' on top of it."**

"You just hate hearing anything that's not the sound of your own voice, don't you?" V can't help but jeer back.

She swears she hears the snide grin crawling it's way over his face as he says " **Not as much as you love jerking off to the sound of your own fucking misery. Seriously, it'd be pathetic if it weren't so goddamn depressing; can't even hear myself think over the droning of the little mental pity party you're throwing yourself. Quit trying to climax and either pound the liquor and drugs like a normal person or go to sleep 'fore I come back out there and knock you the fuck out myself."**

Alright, that one stung a bit.

V's in too much of a state to bother undressing, so she simply lies down on the mattress, tucks her elbow under her head, and waits for sleep to come. Time passes— crawls, really, each minute eeking by so slowly V begins wondering if time's going backwards. Eventually, someone turns the motel sign off, leaving the room dark, cold, and empty. In the silence, V finds herself listening to the blood pumping in her ears. A sort of vibration she can feel but kinda hear if she really tries. And the more she listens, the more V finds herself keeping the beat by tapping her finger. A steady _tap-tap-tap_ that carries the tempo of the thunderstorm's broken tune.

V remembers reading about Arasaka's whole "Secure Your Soul" schtick. She vividly remembers she and Jackie cackling about it in a bar a month ago, going shot for shot after a gig well done. The entire concept of constructs and digital ghosts is way too far above her head but V's pretty sure necromancy isn't an advertised side-effect. This version of the Relic is a prototype, after all. What on earth was Saburo Arasaka's plan for this thing before everything with Yorinobu happened and their lives went tits-up? Was it a glory thing? Was it more sinister than that? Did Yorinobu know what was on the chip while he was trying to pawn it off to NetWatch, or is Silverhand as unwitting a pawn in this as she is?

Arasaka's a leviathan V's never wanted to tackle: told everyone involved in the heist as much. A part of her debates cutting her losses and ditching Night City to track down the Snakes again, but she'd need five hands to list all the reasons she'd never do that. Try as she might, she's still got a chain around her ankle leading her back to that damn town, so Dex and Arasaka're just going to have to come and find her if they want her.

Vik and Misty cross her mind, and V's insides give a despondent twist as she turns to her other side. They must think her dead at this point, but she can't chance giving them a heads up on her return in case someone's listening over the airwaves. V's used to grief, but not necessarily to the idea of someone grieving over her.

Or maybe they're happy she's gone.

For Christ's sake, Jackie was one of Vik's oldest friends and Misty's goddamn boyfriend. Yeah, they're her friends too, in a sense, but not in the same way he was to them. V couldn't blame them at all if they were furious with her, running from Night City with her tail between her legs instead of confronting her problems and grudges head on. She's being irrational, because of course she is, but god, did she fuck up. She fucked up royally, and now everyone's gone and it's all her fucking fault.

_There's no rain in the desert, V._

Breathe in, breathe out. V presses her hands into her eyes, then rolls back over, tucking her knees into her chest.

She feels a rage basting inside her that V can't do anything with except direct towards Johnny Silverhand. Ivy, the poet she was, always used to say that panic plus grief almost always came out to hatred, and V's feels that becoming applicable to her life once again. It's ridiculous, sure, and she can't help but feel like she's feeling that way only because Silverhand's the closest thing to a scapegoat she's got, but it still makes her feel better. Only marginally so, though— a band-aid on a bullet wound. Given all the shit that's happened during the past two years, V doesn't think she's going to feel better for a long time, and now there's a small voice inside herself that's not her's or Silverhand's rattling off all the reasons she doesn't deserve to.

 _This'll all be over soon,_ V tells herself, over and over again. A mantra, more or less; one that might drive her insane the more she repeats it, but she'll take that risk. _This'll all be over soon. This'll all be over soon. This'll all be over soon._

Yet the more she tells herself that, the less believable the words seem. V dares not speak them aloud, in the fear that doing so will unravel the thin strand of hope she's woven and desperately clinging to.

Sleep. She needs to sleep.

V never took stock in asking the gods or the universe for favors, but tonight feels like a special exception. A dreamless sleep is all she asks for. Nothing fancy, no frills or strings attached: only pure, empty bliss.

Just this once, it seems like something out there is willing to show her some mercy.


	2. New Kid in Town

_USER: [UNKNOWN]_

V cups another handful of water and throws it in her face in the hopes it'll wake her up a bit (it doesn't). The message fades and flashes again, useless. Anonymity has never felt both so restrictive and so freeing. Still won't stop her from checking the door in the reflection, half-waiting for an edgerunner to kick it open and put another bullet in her head. She's resigned to taking her chances, though, so V just returns to studying her face. The shape of it, the way that it looks both familiar and foreign. The small scar not quite hidden under the hem of her beanie. The necklace with a bullet dangling from it that turns her stomach like nothing else ever has before.

Her glorious homecoming had, amazingly enough, gone worse than V'd expected it to, not that she'd had high hopes to begin with. One jacked MaiMai and an hour drive through the dawn's light later, she arrived on the doorstep of Misty's Esoterica looking and feeling like absolute horseshit. Misty damn looked ready to faint on the spot when she saw V stagger through the door, but she recovered quickly, closed up the shop, and helped her down to the clinic with no fuss. From there, it was hours upon hours of operating. Her initial appearance was described by Vik as someone who'd "fistfought God but at least managed to give him a shiner for His troubles", an analogy just stupid enough that V might've laughed at it had it not been both extremely unsettling and eerily accurate. That'd still been the high point of her past few days, and in many ways V still feels like she's plummeting straight down.

Nihilism aside, she really has to hand it to Vik, because the man did his job and he certainly did it well. Every single traceable and trackable implant was taken out of her and she didn't die in the process. He changed her eye color from amber to neon green on her request. He grafted new fingerprints, removed her old scars (not the one on her lip— V couldn't bring herself to part with that one). Bless his soul, he even managed to dig out the bullet still lodged in her skull. Sure, she felt like someone had run over her with a truck after all that ripping and carving, but Vik had made her virtually untraceable to the NCPD, to Arasaka, and, most importantly, to Dexter DeShawn. And he'd done it with very few questions on his part, save the customary "how the hell are you still alive?" ones. Maybe he guessed what she intended to do. Maybe he anticipated this scenario from the moment he'd met her. Maybe Vik is more of a friend to her than she'd ever realized before. But the man saved her life quite possibly more than that Relic had; deep down, V knows she'll be sending the eddies she owes him until she keels over, but this is really the kind of gesture you can't pay back, and she damn well knows it.

V _despises_ owing people. Her family, her clan— they never owed anything to anyone. Debt was a foreign concept when she entered Night City, and it's easily the thing she hates the most about it. Debt locks people to others and throws away the key, letting you die with hundreds of chains bogging you down and no way to rip them off.

She makes a mental note not to think about it too much.

Right now, the only way that people can recognize her is physically, and V's already halfway through taking care of that. She's shed the sweatpants and t-shirt for loose-fitting brown cargo pants and a black tank top. A hoodie hangs halfway down her arms, held up by the crooks of her elbows. She's thrown on a beanie as well, half to hide her hair until she can redye it and half to hide the bandages from Vik's back alley brain surgery. Tying it all together is the handmade pendant Misty pressed into her hands before V left, the low-caliber bullet that'd killed her strung up with wires like a fly in a spiderweb. V doesn't quite know how to feel about _that_ yet. It ain't exactly her style, but there is something… morbidly poetic about it, she supposes. If anything, it gives Misty some peace of mind, and V owes her at least that much.

Without warning, her thought process is interrupted by a burst of pain in her head so strong it scrambles her optics. V bites back a pained whimper and presses her hand to her neuroslot, waiting for it to subside. And it does...eventually, yet the next breath V draws is shaky and weak from strain. " _Relic Malfunction Detected",_ her operating system screams back at her. The blood on the back of her busted knuckles when she wipes her mouth's only the cherry on top'a this big pile of shit.

V sighs, feeling a world-weariness she's sure she shouldn't be experiencing at twenty-four.

Welcome to her new normal.

Her head hurts worse than it ever did, so V's been sucking on MaxDocs like hookahs for the past few hours. She takes another huff as she looks herself over, her eyes flicking to Silverhand's reflection as he waits some few feet behind her. He's been quiet for most of the day, but when their eyes meet, he pounces on the opportunity to make a comment; "You look like a joytoy who had a bad fuck."

Much as she loathes to admit it, he's more right than wrong on that one. V looks haggard and worn, with prominent bags under her eyes and scratches and blisters all over the organic parts of her body. Neon green eyes encourage the idea of liveliness, but V feels dead on her feet, and if Silverhand can see right through the façade she's attempting to put on, others can as well.

She can't quite find it in her to fight with him. Not that that won't stop her, though. "Fuck off," she mutters.

It's a weak retort and she knows it. That could be why he doesn't retaliate.

If V hates anything more than debt, it's pity, but she's too scattered to muster up enough anger towards the man to let him know it. She turns away from the mirror and unlocks the door to the public bathroom. Silverhand glitches and disappears as she does so— when V steps back out into the streets of Little China, there he is again, waiting for her against a lightpost.

The weather in Night City is hot and sticky, not helped by the throng of people flooding the streets in the pursuit of their own lives. It's about six in the evening and more folks fill the streets as a result of that, looking for dinner or bars or dance clubs or other things of that matter. The volume's at a loud but manageable buzz, voices melding together into a happy and carefree drone. Neon pinks and blues bathe the streets in an artificial glow, bouncing off the glass windows and swimming in the puddles underfoot. V closes her eyes and soaks in the smells of street food and smog, but no matter how many times she does it, it'll still never feel familiar to her. There's rain on the air, too— maybe the only smell of the lot V finds remotely comforting— and glancing up reveals a mass of low-hanging clouds gathering overhead.

The back of her neck twinges again, jarring her vision once more and distorting the street into thin lines of color that warp and stretch before her very eyes. V presses her hand to the Relic and struggles not to shake from pain and fear until it inevitably subsides. Silverhand catches her eye but he glitches out of existence before she can address him, leaving her reserves of bitterness and resentment unspent.

Turns out when V said the Relic was broken, she was both right and wrong at the exact same time. Wrong, because the Relic had indeed saved her from an early grave in the No-Tell Motel: a set of jumper cables to restart the car battery that was her then-lifeless corpse, as Vik had described when she asked for layman's terms. A second lease on life, a dead woman walking the streets. And as much as it pains her, she does grudgingly admit that Silverhand was indeed telling her the truth back in the motel.

But V was still correct, in the sense that the Relic did not do its job flawlessly. Because he was a man seemingly determined to screw her over as much as he could, Dex's bullet had fucked with the chip's integrity. Her new lease on life is a few months at most, until everything V is will fade away into a quiet black void and get replaced by the dead terrorist who'd pitched a tent in her brain and won't vacate.

Remove the chip? She's a goner. Keep the chip in? She's still a goner, just not an instant one. It's a game she can't win, can't cheat at, can't even really play. She's just supposed to sit and wait for oblivion.

V still hears it. The remorse in Vik's words, the quiver in her own voice as she cursed him and his diagnosis out.

" _Silverhand's construct is overwriting your consciousness— gradually taking over your body until one day you'll just be...gone."_

" _Don't believe an ounce of horseshit coming outta your mouth, Vik. Know why? Because it doesn't make any goddamn sense."_

" _V…"_

" _You're the best of the best, Vik! Why can't you fucking help me!?"_

She'll never forget the way Vik and Misty both looked at her in the clinic. Like she was already in a six-foot hole and they were looking down on her with shovels in hand, ready to start burying her.

But up on the streets, there's noise and bustle. Distractions. Daylight. V'd always been more of a night owl but god, had she missed the sun. She drinks in another breath just to take in all of Watson one last time before shrugging the backpack Vik and Misty'd given her over her shoulders. It contained little more than the pill bottles they'd given her, a roll of thirty-some hard eddies for food and water, and Yorinobu's pistol that by some miracle she managed to hang on to through Konpeki, the Badlands, and everything in between. Where'd there earlier been so much dismay and denial was a cooled and hardened pit deep in her chest with only that long-festering anger filling its place. Anger at Vik and Misty, even though V knows it's completely misplaced. Anger at Jackie, for getting himself killed and leaving her all alone in a world that suddenly makes her feel so tiny and fragile. Anger at the engram that's killing her far too quickly for her own liking. Anger at every single resident of Night City that gets to walk around without having their humanity attached to a ticking timebomb.

But mostly, anger at Dex DeShawn. For putting her in this mess, for getting her friends killed in the process, for putting a bullet in her head and leaving her dead in a landfill. For having the gall to sleep peacefully at night and think that he'd gotten away with it.

The Bakkers, Ivy included, used to tell her that the longer they stood still, the deeper they sunk into the sands, and for the very first time in her life V thinks she gets just what that means. She's neck-deep in her own sorrows and regrets, unable to keep herself afloat, but the thing that scares her the most about that is V can't tell if she's saying "unable" when she truly means "unwilling".

V's a lot of things but the one thing she knows she's never been is someone who rolls over and waits for death to scrape them off the sidewalk.

If she's truly gonna die, then screw it. She's gonna go out on her own goddamn terms, and she's gonna drag that fat, gold-armed motherfucker down to Hell with her.

V starts walking.

Urmland Street is only a few blocks from her apartment, so she swings left and makes for her megacomplex first. She's got no money. Vik severed her connection to her savings when he took her off the grid. She's got no food. Thirty eddies would get her by for a few days if she rations it, but only just. She's barely got any means of defending herself, save for a handgun with nine bullets, a combat knife she keeps for emergencies, and her own bare fists. Her apartment'll at least have all of those things in some capacity, so V figures she can start there and plan her next steps without slumming it on the streets. Hoofing it up to the corner, she turns right and makes for MegaBuilding 10.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

V groans aloud in frustration as Silverhand re-glitches into existence atop a parked car. "Well, you're not me (the unspoken ' _yet_ ' is determinately beaten into the back of her mind, though V can't repress the shiver it sends down her spine), so get lost and leave me alone. I have shit to do," she says sharply.

It's not every day that you get to look the thing killing you in the eye, tell it to go piss off, and know that it could actually listen and do just that if it wanted _._ Unfortunately, Silverhand doesn't seem to jive with the third part of that idea, seeing how he's slid off the car and is currently walking step for step with her. "And what exactly even is this grand new plan of yours?" he probes, hooking his thumbs into his belt.

"Same as the old plan," V mutters what she hopes is low enough to not reach open ears. "I'm going to find Dexter DeShawn and return the fucking favor."

Silverhand laughs, then slowly stops when he notices she's not joining in, "Oh shit, you're serious."

"Dead serious," V growls.

"Pun intended?"

"Get fucked, asshole."

Silverhand vanishes into thin air after that, and V's about to relish a moment of peace and quiet before he re-glitches directly in front of her. V gasps, scrambling back so fast she loses her balance and trips into the person behind her, sending them both tumbling to the ground. Silverhand's breaking into silent fits of laughter as she gathers her belongings and her pride. "Stop _doing that!_ " she screams at him.

"Bitch, you fell into me!" the man underneath her says, indignant.

"I'm not—" V has to physically bite her tongue before she says something crazy-sounding. Mortification rolling off her in waves, she rushes to her feet and shoulders her way through the small crowd that's started gathering. Silverhand's still keeping pace with her, still chuckling to himself. V's heavily weighing her options on taking out the blockers right—

"You pull those placebos outta that pack and I swear, I'm gonna make you look real fucking bonkers in front of everyone," Silverhand warns, his cheeriness instantly dissolving into a no-nonsense threat.

V's frown deepens, both with resentment and, surprising even herself, curiosity. _Get out of my head,_ she thinks as hard as she can. Silverhand only answers with a wicked smile.

Stewing, V brushes past him, focused on keeping her eyes trained forward. Her megacomplex is in view now, stretching a full two miles into the sky, AVs swarming the thing like bees around a hive. She puts a bit of pep in her step at the sight, relief crashing down on her. God, she never thought she'd miss her shithole apartment this much.

"Look, kid, forget the fixer for a moment. You're so hellbent on getting your stupid, glorified revenge that you don't realize you're about to botch it at the first step," Silverhand suddenly says, still dogging her. "It'd be suicide to go back to your apartment right now."

"You've got some nerve, trying to tell me what I can and can't do."

"Just fucking listen to me for a minute, alright? You live in one of the most populated districts in NC and everyone who even knows you in passing thinks you've just snuffed it in spectacular fashion. How're they gonna react when someone snaps a picture of you strutting out of your door 'cause they think 'Hey, isn't that the same apartment where that girl who robbed Konpeki Plaza lived'?"

V stops dead in her tracks.

Shit shit shit shit _shit,_ the last thing she wants is to admit that the man has a damn good point. She's taken herself off the grid, sure, but the police'll probably be on her ass in an instant if she gets within spitting distance of her apartment. For god's sake, she's got an NCPD officer for a downstairs neighbor. So that means for now, V's stranded, stuck on her own without so much as a friend's couch to surf on.

Both Vik and Misty had offered to put her up until she recovered more of her strength, but V was unwavering in her refusal. Half the mercs here'll be hunting her down before long; damn if she lets two of the only people in this city she still gives a crap about become collateral damage because she put them in harm's way. Her immediate thought after that is that she could probably crash at Lizzie's Bar for a few days until she's back on her feet. Wait for the entire thing out with Evelyn Parker and the Mox until she's gotten her things in order and can give Dex a taste of his own medicine. Parker would probably put V up on that notion alone (given the fact that she's the reason V's in this mess in the first place, it's the _least_ the lady can do). The only thing that stops V from switching directions and hoofing it there is a familiar twinge in her gut: the same one she felt at the border checkpoint when she and Jackie were working their very first job together. Judy Alvarez seems like a decent enough person with more morals than usual for folks in Night City, but there's something about Parker that makes V hesitate— hesitate enough for her to drop the idea altogether.

"I can't go to Lizzie's," V thinks out loud, not caring that Silverhand doesn't know what she's referring to. She's used to Jackie being at her shoulder to listen to her chirp away; he's a god-awful replacement but he's a replacement nevertheless, "I need to keep my head down, and I don't think Parker's willing to do that for me."

She swears Silverhand takes a second to roll his eyes. "What about your family?" he says it like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"They don't live in Night City," V mumbles, praying she doesn't sound too dodgy.

If he has any questions, he doesn't raise them, "No other friends, then?"

"None I trust enough to keep their jaws shut."

"...Co-workers? Exes? Anyone?"

Hah. Her 'co-workers' are all mercenaries, so they'll all want her dead as soon as they discover she's still kicking. Her exes arguably all want her dead more than all the solos in this city put together. V's beyond fucked, and she'd probably be going off the deep end about it if she weren't so drugged up and exhausted. The only person in this city she completely trusted to have her back died in the back of a Delamain five days ago—

Again, V stops.

Jackie's Heywood apartment isn't that far of a walk from here. It'll surely be empty now that it's previous owner...y'know. And V still has the passcode, which hopefully hasn't been changed. If folks came around asking questions, she could easily say she was some old output of his, come to grab her old things while mourning the loss of a former fling. She doesn't need a lifetime; she just needs a few days, some food, some sleep, some weapons, and a plan.

It still makes her feel guilty.

What else can she do at this point?

V ducks around the next corner, hearing Silverhand grunt in surprise as she takes an unannounced turn. The edge of Heywood is an hour from here if she detours through Japantown (V wouldn't go through City Center if the cure for her condition was buried under the rubble of Arasaka Tower itself), and Jackie's apartment would be another thirty minute trek beyond that. She should be able to get there before nightfall if she hurries. Her destination set, V begins making for the bridge into Westbrook with Siverhand half a pace behind her. "I'm heading to Heywood," V announces before he can ask. "Got a place I can crash for a few days without raising any flags."

Silverhand tilts his head back in contemplation, "Hiding away at your best choom's house not even a week after he bit the dust. What would Mr. Welles think?"

His words freezes the blood in their veins. She whirls on him, jabbing a finger in his chest. "Don't you fucking say his name," V spits. " _You're_ the whole reason he's dead and I'm in this mess to begin with. Count yourself lucky you aren't really here, rockerboy, else I'd've strangled you seven times over by now."

"Think you're the first woman to threaten me like that? Least put your money where your mouth is."

"You're a bastard."

"Sheesh, what's got your panties in a bunch?"

"You're fucking killing me! That answer your goddamn question!?"

That came out much louder than she'd intended, much to her horror. Some wayward folks glance her way at the sound of her outburst, forcing V, still infuriated, to tap her temple and mouth "holo". That satisfies most of them, and they return to their business. _Fucking eavesdropping, nosy-ass dicks,_ V fumes to herself.

Silverhand heaves a dramatic sigh. "Alright, alright, I'm sorry I'm killing you. Happy now, V?" he apologizes like a kid who's been coerced to by a parent. "Mind taking the pole outta your ass if you are?"

"You need to be studied by science," V taunts right back. "I can see the headlines now: 'Researchers Discover First Man with Absolutely No Capacity for Understanding Others'. You'd be strapped in a fucking straitjacket for the rest of your life, pounding your head on the wall and begging for someone to let you out."

He goes quiet for a beat, and V's quick to notice the abrupt change in topic, "If you're so gung-ho about this whole DeShawn thing, let's ask the burning question. You really think you're gonna just waltz over to his place, ring the doorbell, and pop a bullet in his brain when he answers? You look like a crackwhore who escaped her den, and that's putting it mildly; you'll stick out like a sore thumb."

"Maybe I like looking like a crackwhore," V bites back before she can think better of herself.

Silverhand does nothing except arch an eyebrow at that, yet even that's enough to make her face go a very violent shade of crimson. She avoids looking at him as she continues,"'Sides, I'm not going to pop a bullet in his brain. I have a way to make his death as painful as possible."

"What, you gonna talk him to death?"

Oh god, V would've killed to smack all that smug outta his face. She puts on a spurt of speed as a means of distraction, hands balled at her sides, and grows increasingly annoyed when Silverhand refuses to take the hint and disappear. "I've got ways," she mutters, for lack of any actual ammunition to throw at him.

"You're a homeless bum with a peashooter and some crazy pills, and those a killer does not make," Silverhand says snidely. "Let's try this then, princess. What's your plan? Gimme some details. Hell, let's start with a first step. Go on, impress me."

He has that magic ability, V notes privately, to bring up decent points but then render them totally worthless by delivering them in the most condescending way possible. She didn't even have a place to sleep three minutes ago— of course she doesn't have a fucking plan. Was she always going to wing it? Probably not, but V's had far too much on her mind to come up with something viable and far too little patience to stand getting grilled for it by what's essentially a walking, talking brain tumor. But rather than admit all that, she keeps her tongue reined in, eyes glued on anything that isn't him.

Deeming her furious silence an answer in and of itself, Silverhand rolls his shoulders, "Alright, then, we'll start easy. Guns blazing or not, we'll need ammunition. Which means we'll need money."

"This is not a 'we' situation," V says pointedly.

"Geez, V, hand me an umbrella before you start PMSing all over the place." She won't even dignify that with a response. "Money. How you gonna get it?"

It's an easy enough question. As rational thought cuts through her rage, V finds herself thinking aloud again, the cogs in her head already turning, "Low-level fixers looking for mercs are practically an enny a dozen in Night City. I'll just use an alias, work a small job or two. There's plenty of fixers who can't be bothered with background checks. One more merc won't raise any eyebrows."

"Maybe try something better suited to your strengths, kid," Silverhand suggests dryly. "Granted, I haven't caught much of your work, but what I have seen ain't impressive."

"Blow me."

"Buy me dinner first, at least. Now let's talk strategy—"

"Why are you even helping me?" V demands out of the blue, rounding on him.

Silverhand looks legitimately surprised at that, which catches V off-guard. Shrugging, he says in an easy tone of voice, "Consider me your fairy godmother, V— here to grant you your last wish 'fore you kick the can."

"Well that's fucking comforting."

"If you want someone to hold your hand, give you gold stars, and tell you everything's gonna be alright, then by all means, go give mommy a ring and tell her to come pick you up," he snipes right back. Curling her lip, V tries to pick up her pace, only to be forced to halt when Silverhand glitches into her path and cuts her off again. "If you want real world insights, then looks like you slipped the right chip into your head."

V lets out a cold laugh. "Real world insights? You mean… your real world insights? The ones coming from the man who's been dead since 2023?" she says, cramming as much contempt into the words as possible. "Hard to take advice from someone whose worldview's as dated as his hairstyle. Admit it: you're just biding time until I fade away, and you think getting chummy with me'll make it a helluva lot easier."

Silverhand blows a raspberry at her, looking both amused and offended. "Were you this paranoid before you died? Wait, y'know what, don't answer. Rather not have my head bitten off."

"You can't even deny it!" V exclaims. "You're just mentally checking my countdown timer 'til I vacate the premises and you can rub your greasy dead hands all over my life. Some way to fight the fucking power, rockerboy."

She starts to storm past him but Silverhand stops her again— this time it's with a hand on her bicep, and V's so taken aback from the sudden humanness of it all that she doesn't immediately shrug him off. "Alright, yeah, maybe I am jazzed at the prospect of having a body, but this is hardly my fault," he defends himself.

V bristles, "Well it's not _my_ fault. I didn't ask for this chip to save me, and I sure didn't ask for Dex to shoot me. Hell, it wasn't even inserted into my head to begin with!"

Something flashes in Silverhand's eyes, "Then the real person to blame for all of this is..."

He trails off, expression expectant, waiting for her to supply the name. V opens her mouth before furiously closing it again.

"Face it, kid," Silverhand says in a hard voice. It almost, _almost_ sounds like he's trying to be sincere, but he's either forgotten how to or never learned to begin with, "what happened was bad luck, nothing more."

"Yeah, bad luck. Bad luck that you're still taking advantage of," V spits back. "News flash, Silverhand: that doesn't make you an innocent bystander— that makes you a fucking parasite."

Without waiting for an answer, she swats his arm away and starts walking again. Forward they march, falling back into that same formation of V leading and Silverhand following a step behind. The Watson streets still swarm with sizable groups of people, forcing V to either use her shoulders to barge through them or jump off the sidewalk to sidestep them. Even with all that, Silverhand never vanishes, and while he doesn't seem to have any intention of jumping back into her brain and leaving her be, he also isn't going out of his way to speak with her, even though V figures he's penning a novel's worth of reasons he's right and she's wrong. In fact, when she chances a few glances back, he doesn't even seem to be paying attention to her. If he was really there, V'd've said Silverhand looked like any old Night City tourist, studying each skyscraper and scrutinizing every shop on the corner. She leaves him to that, waiting for the moment he asks something yet enjoying the relief she feels when he never does.

The minutes tick by, the shadows stretch, the taller buildings fall back into Watson's skyline, and the bustle of Night City diminishes the closer V gets to the waterfront. It's around 6:30 by the time she reaches the strip of road that borders the water, Japantown twinkling across the way. Baby pink streaks of light struggle to seep through the thunderclouds and the sun is a massive red stone bleeding into the Pacific as it slowly sinks into the ocean. V waits at the crosswalk for the light to turn green, too disconnected to pay her surroundings much attention.

Silverhand's been quiet, she's been quiet, so the city's been doing the majority of speaking for them. Busted-up Thorntons chug down the road, their owners blasting just about every radio station V can remember tuning into since she'd started living here. The wind's grown cold. Damp, too, the promise of another massive storm dangling low in the air. V shrugs her hoodie over her shoulders, zips it up, and throws the hood on as well. Her goods weigh down like rocks in her backpack and she can hear the rattle of pills as she slings it back over her shoulders. There's still a faint, familiar metallic taste in her mouth as V shuffles from one foot to the other, losing herself in a thought.

Should she take some of the omega blockers now? Dealing with Silverhand is exhausting in and of itself; now she's got to contend with her own body physically rejecting her in favor of him, and that's just about all she can take at this point. Vik gave her a decent supply of pills, but not a whole lot. V has no idea of knowing how long they'd last or if they'd even work at all. She should take one and set it on a timer; that way, she could space her dosages out and never have to hear his crap again. She could live out the rest of her days free of her foul-mouthed split personality and not have to think about him slowly killing her. Out of sight, out of mind, right?

Suddenly, V swears she hears a faint melody playing over and over again in the back of her head.

The light turns green at the same time that V turns around. The residents of Night City keep on moving past her, keep going about their lives unhurried and unbothered, but she and him remain frozen in place. Silverhand stands with his back to her, hands on his hips as he takes in the side of the building towering before him. Peeling graffiti covers every inch of the bricks, bearing scars from wannabe artists who've chiseled the old tags away to make more space, but there's two turquoise words that haven't been touched quite yet. She's seen several others of the same kind dotted about here and there, all of them written out in the same sort of naive reverence that V learned to stop having a long time ago.

" _Where's Johnny?"_

The tune in her head persits, though, echoey and melancholic. V's fingers involuntarily twitch, picking and strumming her way through the chords of a song she doesn't know yet somehow knows like the back of her hand: _A minor_ , _G, A minor, F, C, F, C, F, C…_

"Ah shit, you can hear that?"

She snaps out of her trance to see Silverhand has put a pin in his efforts to try and glare the wall down and is instead looking at her. She wouldn't say he looks embarrassed, per se. More self-conscious than anything, which doesn't jive well with that ever-present anger that V constantly feels simmering in the back of his, and by extension her, mind.

"Yeah," she finds herself freely admitting, shoving her hands in her pockets to stop them from plucking imaginary strings. Silverhand pulls a face and turns back to the wall, but V can't help but prod further, "What was that song? One of yours?"

"Nah. Some old hit from… god, I don't know, the sixties?" He dismisses his own thought with a wave of the hand, "S'not important. Graffiti just made me think of it is all."

"The twenty-sixties?" V, puzzled, asks before she can stop herself.

A cold, empty, telling hush is all that follows. V rocks on her heels for a heartbeat or two, anticipating a typical barbed reaction, but Silverhand's gone rigid, now so deep into thought that he doesn't answer her. V's about to say something else, thinks better of it, and with a shake of her head starts making for Westbrook once again. If she hurries now, she can make it before the sun fully dips and the Valentinos start—

"Y'know, I never did ask you what year it is."

The words catch V by the throat, yanking her back to the here and now.

She never claimed to be good with emotions, hers or others or anyones in between, but she swears she hears the smallest hint of something in Silverhand's voice as he keeps staring at the graffiti before them. Carefully, V looks back over her shoulder and sizes him up. A part of her debates the ramifications of simply lying to him, but the man doesn't seem like an idiot and V's not the type to coddle people. "2077," she says flatly, trying to gauge his reaction.

Silverhand, damn him, doesn't give her much to work with. He merely shifts his weight to his other side, cocking his head in a way that reveals far more than words ever could. "Fifty-four years," he mutters to himself, just loudly enough that she can hear him, "it's been fifty-four goddamn years."

She nods once, more of a jerk of the head than anything.

"So nothing's changed, then?"

Fear.

There's a trace of fear buried underneath all that callousness and cynicism.

Maybe V feels it, too, because how couldn't she? She woke up buried in a junkyard with nothing but the clothes on her back and flashes of a death so terrifying she still had a hard time believing she hadn't actually seen images of Hell in all it's glory. All of Silverhand's pain, his emptiness, a rage so soaked through with a misplaced sense of grandiosity he believed in so intensely V felt she could've done _anything,_ even burn down an entire city. How do you tell someone that fifty years have passed by and Night City hadn't changed at all, and probably never would despite your best efforts?

Is this the chip doing the talking? Is this just Silverhand's emotions getting tangled up in hers and creating some synthetic empathy for him she never would've felt otherwise? God, V hates all this: the uncertainty, the confusion, the lack of knowing what feelings are hers and what are his and whether or not she can even trust herself to feel anything genuine. She despies the fact that this fucking _thing_ is eating away at her brain and causing her to second-guess herself. Second-guessing was something she swore off doing when she first became a scout, because doing so could mean the lives of everyone else in your clan. When she was on her own, it was like a part of her had been sliced off; like V wasn't entirely whole for those six months. Still, she never once looked back. She couldn't.

But now it's just her again. Just lil' ol' V, all on her lonesome. Pretty much everyone V's ever cared about is gone, so what's even the point of reaching out to people again if she's just going to bite it come a few months time?

The answer's simple, bittersweet, and multipronged, yet the message remains the same. It's because Misty and Vik begged her to take care of herself with the time she had left. Or maybe because she promised Jackie she'd fly as high as she could in this shithole city. It's because even after their spat when V finally found her mother again, Ivy's parting words to her only daughter before she took off for Night City were "You better not die before I find you again, sweetheart."

Because the Herculean burden of being human can't be satisfied with being anything but the most heart-wrenching experience of your life. It demands empathy without any reward, forgiveness without any justice. Being human requires you to chug along and drive onwards, even when everything you are is screaming to stay behind. Being human means not only being able to accept change, but not fearing it, either.

And "human" is something Johnny Silverhand is decidedly not. Not in a straightforward sense, at least.

But if V can't accept change, what does that make her?

For the first time since this bullshit with the Relic started, she feels a stab of genuine pity for the engram she's been forced into coexistence with.

"Dwelling on it won't help," V murmurs. "I've been down that road, and believe me, it doesn't lead anywhere. It'll only get you more lost."

Stubborn as a stone, Silverhand does nothing, says nothing, won't even glance her way. He just remains rooted in place and staring at the small shrine to all his achievements and failures. If he was real, V has no doubt he'd stay there all day and all night, turning his thoughts over and over and over and hoping to anything that'd listen that there'd be an answer buried beneath one of them. And shit, if she doesn't get that to her goddamn core.

"Listen, Silverhand, I've seen it. Arasaka Tower, the bomb, Saburo. I saw it all, every last bit," V says, perhaps a bit harsher than she intended. "So the world didn't wait for you. Suck it up and deal with it."

That finally tears his eyes off the wall and onto her. He points his metal hand at the graffiti, "I ripped the rot outta this city, nuked it right into the ground, all to get those 'Saka fuckers out. When did they come back?"

"2070-ish, I think? After the Unification War," she tells him with a shrug.

"The Uni—?" Silverhand stops, grimaces, and bolts to a different train of thought. "Those fucking bloodsuckers. They're a goddamn hydra, V. You cut off the head and three more sprout up in its place. I turned Night City into a fucking crater and you're telling me it only kept them out for forty years?"

V doesn't really know how to respond to that. "Forty years is still a while," is all she can say, wincing at her own helplessness.

Her weak answer doesn't sate him. His words become more angry, more caustic, more aimed towards the easy target. "I'm not like you, kid. Wide-eyed and stupid to the point of blissful ignorance," Silverhand's pacing now, gesturing harder with every step. "I've seen the shit Arasaka's done to people; shit that'd've made your daddy weep into his nightly gin and tonics. ' _Forty years is still a while'_ — they should've never come back in the first place!"

V fights down a flinch, raises her chin, and meets his insults head on, "So you wanna keep standing still, thinking about all the woulda coulda shouldas? Fine, be my guest, but I've been there once and it cost me everything I'd ever cared about. Now I'm not going to pretend to give a damn about your baggage and I won't ask you to give a damn about mine, but until I'm gone, you're stuck with me, and I've got no intention of sitting around waiting for Dexter DeShawn to give up his own ghost. When my timer's up, you can fight your dumb class war to your heart's content, but not a moment sooner."

"You don't get it."

His expression is jaded, his tone even more so, and V feels her own frustration dry up in her mouth. With a defeated sigh, she summons every last ounce of sympathy she possesses and breaks their endless circle of an argument. "Maybe I do, maybe I don't," V concedes. "But we both know staring at a brick wall with your name on it's not the answer you're looking for."

Silverhand's expression is virtually unreadable. He casts one more glance at the graffiti, kicks at some litter, and doesn't acknowledge that he's heard her. The daylight's faded to the point where the streetlights have come on now, one by one by one.

He still casts no shadow, V realizes. Silverhand glances down at his feet, then looks at his hands, as if he too had just come to the same realization.

Some seconds slip by. She hears the light turn green again, and the crowd starts to shuffle past her once more. The incoming thunder rumbles a distant warning over the bay. "C'mon," V jerks her head at Silverhand, her tone as gentle as she can make it, "There's more rain coming, rockerboy. No sense in...in standing out here and getting soaked."

She almost says "us", like he's really there and at risk of the elements, but she manages to catch herself in time. " _This is not a 'we' situation,"_ the words echo hollowly in V's mind, yet she can't wrap her head around why it now feels more like a passing wish than a firm fact.

And with that, she finally crosses the road, with or without him. When she reaches the other side, V does risk a peek back, only to see nothing. A glance to the left, to the right, then in front of her, and an ease she knows'll be far too fleeting washes over her. Seems as though Silverhand's decided to give her some time to herself. She nearly thanks him for it, but it'd be a waste of time for everyone involved, considering the man doesn't seem like the type for disingenuous, backhanded forms of flattery. He's silent for now, so she won't risk souring his mood.

With steps that feel twice as heavy than when she started, V turns onto the bridge alone and goes blindly into the dark.

It's only when she reaches the Glen and she's gripped by another Relic malfunction does V remember that she never did take those omega blockers.

Even with that realization, she still doesn't. Perhaps she considers the idea of a sedated death to be worse than a fully cognizant one. Perhaps she feels Silverhand deserves to see what he's doing to her when she inevitably deteriorates. Perhaps V simply pities the man enough not to silence him for the rest of her life. Whatever the reason, V doesn't really care. Her thoughts are occupied with Dexter DeShawn, Jackie Welles, and the waning memory of chords belonging to a song she's never heard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chords Johnny plays are the opening notes to "The Sound of Silence" by Simon and Garfunkel.


	3. Angry Young Man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slight trigger warning for graphic violence and some minor references to suicide

Step, dodge, kick, duck, step, swing. There's sweat in her eyes and a taste of salt in the back of her mouth. Between the dim lights and the full-throttle screams from the crowd, V can't exactly make sense of her surroundings, working entirely on instinct and muscle memory as a result. But she's been in harder fights than this. Hell, she's been in harder fights with teenagers than whatever this is.

Her opponent— some Valentino kid, recently inducted by the looks of it, who she doesn't really remember the name of— bares his teeth in righteous fury and swings again. V easily sidesteps, spinning on cybernetic heel to slam her left shin into his unguarded stomach. She swears she hears his lungs give out like deflated balloons the instant her leg connects (both in the metaphorical and auditory sense; from the wheeze that follows, V briefly worries she's just caved the kid's chest in) and down he goes, sinking to trembling hands and knees. "One...two…three...!" the crowd begins chanting along with the knockout countdown. Too bad V's not in much of a mood for theatrics.

The poor kid barely even has a chance to raise his head before V's fist comes slamming down on it. Down he goes again, fully this time, crumpling in on himself. He's unconscious before he even hits the ground.

The bell rings to signal her win, sending their teeny audience into pure fits of ecstasy: screaming and stamping and hollering. V ignores them to bend down and rouse the poor Tino kid; when he remains unresponsive, she sighs, picks him up, loads him onto her shoulder, and carries him out of the ring herself.

Stepping out of the ring, she's immediately approached by about five or so youngish looking guys who must be the kids' friends. They swarm her, all of their expressions falling somewhere on a scale of angry to apprehensive, like she might turn her fists on them too. V deposits the kid as gently as she can at their feet and leaves them to rouse the Tino kid themselves, wandering off towards the benches where the rest of tonight's fighters have gathered. One of them hollers a hasty " _gracias!_ " as she passes while another nudges a third and tells him to go find some smelling salts.

So this is what it's come to? Gangoon kids scrapping for meager eddies in fighting rings? V knows she's got no right to judge anyone given how she's right down here in the gutter with them. Never in a million years did she see herself on the other side of these things, but here she fucking is, and V's discovered that she's getting pretty sick of the universe's sense of humor.

Crashing on Jackie's couch was the easy part. Everything after that stunk like a hot, fat turd roasting on the sidewalk. For the better part of a week, V wandered aimlessly throughout the labyrinth of Heywood and Santo Domingo, splitting her efforts between gathering info on Dex and submitting her name to any small-time fixer that'd give her the time of day. The hours turned into days before she knew it and her holo never rang once, but it eventually clicked for her as to why. Jackie Welles, proud son of Heywood, a former Valentino, son of the proprietor of the most popular bar this side of the river— his qualifications were practically endless, his list of connections a mile long and full of chooms ready and willing to lend him a hand. And then there was V: a former nomad with practically no social ties if she was advertising her honest self, and a total gamble with no track record of success if she was trying to look for gigs. Of course fixers were passing her up. V was confident in the skills she brought to the table, but she never realized just how valuable Jackie had been to their initial successes as a merc tag-team. The mere thought of it made her chest ache with grief and guilt.

And now she's here. Hiding in his apartment like the greedy, freeloading bastard she is.

Crashing on Jackie's couch was the easy part. It was always going to be the easy part, because she'd convinced herself it was the only way. How much longer was she going to take and take and take from the people that gave her _everything_ without giving jackshit back in return?

Every night, V'd whisper to herself that there was no rain in the desert, if only to maintain a grip on her sanity. Sleep came fitfully, but it would always come eventually. Wash, rinse, repeat.

One or two days of this routine were manageable but V was growing desperate by the fifth. Her eddies had dried up the day before and if she didn't find a source of income soon, she was going to suffocate on her own helplessness, given her stomach didn't eat itself first. She didn't dare touch Jackie's emergency funds, which he'd kept in a shoebox behind the AC unit, and she had too much at stake to pick up her holo and beg for gigs. So that left one option, maybe the last remaining way to do it with some semblance of her pride still intact.

The next day, V jacked into every unguarded access point she could find, by some miracle managed to skim enough eddies for her entrance fee, and into the lion's den she walked.

Underground fighting rings were everywhere in Night City if one knew where to look for them. Under laundromats, behind schools, in abandoned apartment complexes; V's pretty sure there's one on the top of MegaBuilding 4 that only runs on Saturday nights. This particular ring is one she and Jackie had been to once or twice as spectators, located beneath an old automotive plant from the 2050's. A fighting arena had been hollowed out of the basement floor, thirty feet in diameter as to give enough space to maneuver, with ten feet of concrete walls so competitors can't ditch the fight if they get cold feet. Six rows of bleachers tower above the ring, meaning the crowds that gather are usually small, loud, and packed so tightly it's practically a one-way ticket to lifelong claustrophobia.

V's never done much prize fighting aside from scraping with the other Bakkers kids and the occasional inter-clan mock tournament or two. She considers herself good with her fists— great, even— but she'd be kidding herself if she wasn't nervous at her chances. That was three fights and three knockouts ago.

At this point, V's more bored than anything, throwing a blank look towards the other fighters as she collapses into an empty space on one of the benches. She prods one of the only actual injuries she's sustained tonight, a bruise on her ribs that's slowly mottled over with blues, purples, and yellows, and determines she'll be fine for maybe one last match. The man on her left wordlessly passes her a MaxDoc and a fresh towel, both of which she accepts with a nod. The only language spoken in their makeshift locker room is that of the shuffling of bodies and the groans of those far more injured than she is. The crowd's chaotic cheers can still seep through the walls, almost terrifying in its wanton fervor.

V pats herself dry, takes a huff of the MaxDoc, and begins unwrapping the bloody bindings on her hands and wrists. Each minuscule movement around her makes V freeze, puts her on guard. There's nothing out of the ordinary in her periphery, but she knows he's watching, biding his time.

"I know you're there, rockerboy. Rooting around in there for some way to kill me faster," V growls under her breath as she finishes her with left hand and starts on her right. "Wanna come out, try me when I'm _really_ not in the mood for your shit?"

No response. V's even checking the corners of her eyes for telltale glitching, but it appears her favorite tapeworm doesn't want to rear his ugly head.

Jesus Christ, she's going crazy.

Silverhand's appearances have been fewer and further between as of late. He still shows up occasionally, either in the real world or as a voice in her head, but it's never for more than a few quips at a time. V's best guess is that he's still taking his new surroundings in, still adjusting to being the fish out of temporal water. Well, the nature of prize fighting hasn't exactly altered much in the last fifty years, so she's been expecting his color commentary all night long, yet all is quiet between them. Could be he gets the stakes hinging on the situation and is letting her focus, which V is begrudgingly grateful for if that's the case, but she's never known him to outright pass up a chance to insult her.

 _What, nothing?_ V thinks as she balls the wrappings up and kicks them under the bench, _No snide remarks? No cheap shots? Nada? God, Silverhand, you're as boring as my fights tonight. Gimme some entertainment._

"You Miss. Jones?"

V's jolted from her mental goading to see a broad-shouldered man in sunglasses and a biker jacket standing over her, carrying a tablet. She straightens up, "Yes?"

"Got your winnings," he taps a finger to the screen.

V nods and the facilitator extends his hand. His eyes glow blue as he syncs with her operating system, and V watches it slowly buffer. He's already moving on to the next fighter for their payout when her earnings drop into her account:

_87 eddies transferred successfully._

"Wait wait wait wait," V jumps to her feet and bolts after him, irritation lending her speed, "I've won three matches in a row and I barely got ninety eddies to show for it. What gives?"

"That's what you're owed. I don't make the rules, lady," the man says unsympathetically, studying her over his sunglasses

"It was a three hundred eddy cover fee to fight tonight. I make my full cover back if I don't lose, plus I get a share of my opponents' cover, plus money from the betting tables," she argues. "Those are _literally_ the rules. Correct my math here, but I'm pretty sure eighty-seven eddies doesn't scratch that."

V's a few inches shorter than the man but she must look pretty pissed, because he blanches at her expression, "Look, you wanna haggle so bad, take it up with the man himself. Office's upstairs next to the clinic."

He points to the staircase in the back of the room and, with that escape made from their conversation, makes for the next fighter on his list, leaving V fuming in the center of the room. Seeing no other choice, she marches over to the stairs and ascends to the second floor, boiling in her own ire.

 _Haggle_...not haggling if the money was hers to begin with. V stomps up the steps and makes for the closed door across from the clinic but she doesn't enter yet, lingering there with her hand on the knob. V feels a trace of apprehension somewhere under all her anger, something she'd be dumb to ignore, because the organizer of this event is Levi Mikahlov. Thirty-two years old. A thrill-seeker, a risk-taker, and a former huscleman who's built like a goddamn panzer. More well connected than probably half the fixers in the city, he's got a finger in nearly every underground fighting ring in Heywood and Santo Domingo. He's a household name if you were into that stuff, though he's got a reputation for at least running a reputable business. Cops probably would've taken him down a long time ago if his fighting rings weren't so clean-cut and regulated (not to mention the NCPD probably make up half the goddamn audience in these things: she and Jackie swore they saw the commissioner here eight months ago). At the very least, Levi's got enough restraint not to resort to life-or-death cage matches as the default, which is probably why he's been tolerated for as long as he has. Good clean matches. Can't ask for anything more than that.

If only he weren't a Scav. Or didn't have an ego rivaled only by the rockerboy currently residing in her head.

He's a man who damn well knows the power he wields, and that equals a man who won't like having his authority challenged under his own roof. Well, the time for batting lashes and sweet-talking is long past, so V throws out her remaining self-restraint and barges into the office.

The first thing she notices (and curses herself for) is that Levi's not alone. Of course the huscleman'd bring his own huscle. Six men of various sizes perch around the room: two watch the ongoing match from the windows, a third glances up from the TV, another hangs up his holo, and the final pair flank the man of the hour himself. Levi Mikahlov's everything V expected from him. Broad. Scarred. Slightly intoxicated. Incredibly Eastern European. Not even the slightest bit thrown by a bald woman bursting into his office unannounced.

All those points combined make V fumble a bit on the entrance. She opens her mouth but it's a good three seconds before words drop out of it, "...I want to talk about my payout."

Levi doesn't even spare a glance her way. He does chuckle, though, like she's giving him jokes rather than demands. "Perhaps at the end of the night," he grins around the words, revealing a mouth full of chromed-out teeth.

V manages to discover some leftover curtness at that. "I'll rephrase:" she says in much steadier a voice this time, "I want to talk about my payout _now._ "

A sharp eye flicks to V, then to one of his husclemen, and Levi eventually nods. A second later, a chair is plunked in front of the desk by said huscle, who points at it with a scowl. While Levi organizes himself, she takes stock of each man's position in the room out of habit. Their cybernetics of choice. The multitude of irons they've got strapped in their shoulder holsters.

(The fact that she's fucked eight ways from Sunday if this goes any way south. Not that she's dwelling on it. Course she isn't. Duh.)

Every nerve on end, V slowly lowers herself into the seat.

"You are Miss. Sandra Jones, correct?" Levi's tone is amicable enough. He flashes his generous smile that V refuses to return, "I saw your last fight. Impressive. Very, uh, unorthodox."

V raises her brows, "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Your fighting style. You weren't taught in the city, no?"

"I didn't come up here for you to flatter me like I'm a Jig-Jig joygirl and you're short my going rate," V forcibly realigns the conversation. "I'll tell you the same thing I'd say in that scenario: I want my money."

Levi smacks his lips and retrieves his holo, beckoning to the huscle by the TV as he does. V's bracing for a fight but the man simply meanders towards a small bar setup in the corner, retrieving a bottle of mid-shelf gin and some glasses. The shots are poured and passed without a single comment while Levi chats in Russian. One is even passed to her. Still feeling cagey but not one to look a gift horse, V takes it, knocks it back, and puts the empty glass on the desk.

Levi hangs up at the same time she finishes the shot. "You're direct, and I like that in my fighters," at the severe look V throws him, he raises his hands defensively, "but my men tell me you've already been paid in full, Miss. Jones."

"Maybe your definition of 'full' needs to be reworked, 'cause I'm at least five hundred eddies short of 'full'," she tells him coolly.

Levi shrugs, "Sure, that would be true for _regulars,_ but you aren't a regular. We might keep a little from non-regulars as compensation. I have lights to keep on, mouths to feed, et cetera et cetera."

"Who're your regulars, then?"

"Eh, close associates. Friends of friends. Business partners—"

"So Scavs, then," V surmises, tipping back on the legs of her seat. "Gee, if I wanted to spend an entire night getting screwed by some Russian bastard, I'd've just kept my money and given your brother a call."

She's saved from getting beaten into a pulp by half a dozen men at once by Levi, who calls them off with a wave of his hand. "Your hurtful words won't get you an enny from me," it's almost as if he's chiding her, like V's nothing but a bratty child with a bad case of potty mouth. He lets the point sink in for a moment and then goes out of his way to ruin it by snapping back "and the joke's on you, my brother's been dead for three years."

"Condolences."

"You may leave now, Miss. Jones."

"Not leaving 'til I see my eddies, Mikahlov."

The unexpected sound of more guests momentarily kills their argument. V turns over her shoulder to see a man in scrubs— Levi's ripper, she assumes— shimmy into the room. He's accompanied by two Scavs, each carrying a handle of a large black container. As the ripperdoc excuses himself and offers some hasty explanation, the case is set on the edge of Levi's desk and opened with a biochemical _hiss._ Nearly a dozen pairs of eyes, V's included, fall on the piece of tech that Levi extracts from within.

It's small, black, and vaguely triangular. On top is a small nozzle like a jackport, on the bottom is a crust of something vaguely red that V decides is not worth the question it poses. It's a piece of equipment barely half the size of her forearm but everything about it screams expensive. Corpo expensive, too; the kind of expensive that would necessitate two armed convoys just to transport. V tilts her head a bit, intrigue overwriting some of her ire.

Ever the gentleman, Levi sees her analyzing the tech and holds it higher. "A Kendachi monowire," he tells V, turning his wrist to inspect it. "Latest model. Ten feet of wire, thermal core capable of four hundred degrees, razor-thin monofilament capable of paring an atom. Very useful tool for an edgerunner's arsenal."

 _Like any edgerunner can afford one._ "Don't monowires usually come in pairs?"

Levi carefully places the cyberware back into its storage container, "In my line of work, it becomes best not to ask questions."

The instant he shuts the container and redoes the latches, V's struck with a sensation she hasn't experienced in ages. Definitely not since she was still a Bakker, though that could be a part of the reason she's feeling it. It's familiar, it's intense, it's purely nomadic, and it's downright intoxicating:

Want.

God save her from her old ways, but she _wants_ that fucking monowire. She knows firsthand how much those things go for. Piles and piles and piles of eddies, even for older models. More eddies V'd ever make in a lifetime. And here's one now, in near perfect condition, ready to waste away in the hands of a dick who'd just sell it off to the highest bidder anyway. V exhales, letting herself slip down a runaway concept.

Could be she solves two of her problems in one fell swoop?

"And here she goes again with another one of her patented high-risk-no-reward business propositions."

V has to physically bite back a groan as Silverhand makes his grand entrance in their conversation on the corner of Levi's desk, fishing into a pack of cigarettes. "Gotta say, V, you're breaking onto whole new levels of stupid before my very eyes. I'd almost say I'm proud," he says while lighting a smoke, closing the lighter with a flick of his metal wrist. "Y'know, proud in the same way this chick I knew was proud of her stupid, three-legged Shih-Tzu. Guess you're my very own stupid, three-legged Shih-Tzu, V."

She draws the breath to fuel a retort but catches herself. _Ghost the hell off, Silverhand,_ she thinks at him, _I'm busy._

Silverhand sweeps the room, then returns to her with a look so sardonic V feels her lip automatically curl at it. "Busy. Sure, busy beating up kids and shooting the shit with the Russkies. Very important," he takes a drag on the cigarette and flicks out the digital ash, "On a side note, how's that grand DeShawn plan of yours coming, by the way? Make any money yet?"

Fucking prick. _I'm working on it._

"Yeah, well, better work harder, kid, 'cause it looks like they're carting off your bargaining chip."

He motions with the cigarette and V follows, only to see the ripperdoc leading the Scavs out the door with the monowire's case in hand. She nearly trips over her feet as she bolts for them, "Wait!"

She's able to dart in front of the door before they can leave. The ripperdoc looks startled, the Scavs surprised, the husclemen enraged, but V's attention is only for the man behind the desk. "We weren't finished talking about my payment," she reminds him.

Agitation gathers like a tempest over Levi's face. His words are polite enough, yet his tone is barely tethered to the civil veneer he's been putting up. "Yes, we were. Your pay is non-negotiable, Miss. Jones. Don't make me repeat myself."

"What about a wager?"

Silence greets her offer. It dangles in the air for a good long while, so long V frets she's just sealed her own fate, but Levi nods to his ripperdoc and again motions towards the chair after some pondering. The tension in the room doesn't dissipate as she sits back down.

Levi pushes a burrito wrapper off the edge of the table into the wastebasket below as the Scavs place the crate back on the desk. The plastic goes directly through Silverhand's body, and both him and V repress shivers as it makes its way out the other side. He eyes her a tad more intently behind steepled fingers, "Let's hear this little wager of yours, then."

"Your best fighter versus lil' ol' me," V proposes. "You win, you can keep my money. Plus, as a kicker, you can rip out all my implants and use them however you want. Reuse 'em, sell 'em, scrap 'em for parts, I don't give a shit. But if I win, I get my share _and_ you install that monowire onto my arm for free."

Levi barks out a laugh, "Miss. Jones, no offense, but I don't _want_ any of your jank-ass cyberware," she knows he's mostly referring to her leg, the only visible cybernetic she has, but V's pride still doesn't take very kindly to the mockery. "Could maybe sell on the vintage market, but the cost of fixing that up proper'd cost more eddies you'd ever win here."

His cronies guffaw at that. V takes a deep breath through her nose in an effort to get a hold on her dwindling patience. "Kiroshis are mark II, packing armor plating in the stomach, chest, and back, got a ballistic compressor that links with my optics, and my 'ganic leg's fitted with a reinforced tendon," she says coolly. "Take all those out? That's twenty thousand eddies at the very least, and my shit's all good quality."

"And that little blinking light in your neuroslot. What's that?"

V's hand immediately goes to the back of her neck, but there's no mistaking the chime of newfound interest in Levi's voice.

Her eyes flit to her beloved tumor. Silverhand's shaking his head; whatever humor he'd found in the situation has long since vanished, because he's now looking at V like she's a cat about to knock a glass off a countertop.

Is it her ego that drives her? Spite? Does she think it's a calculated risk, or is it just sheer foolhardiness? Whatever the motive, V smirks at Levi and proclaims in as tantalizing a voice as she can muster up: "Take the offer and find out."

Levi leans back in his chair, a keen gleam in his eye, "Some of your implants…taking them out of you would kill you. You know that, right, Miss. Jones?"

Well, she's dying anyway— in for a penny, in for a pound. "How 'bout we give the people what they really want, then? Cage match to the death. Stakes still stand. Fight ends when one of us offs the other. No running, no reneging, no mercy: to the victor'll go the spoils."

Fascination clogs the room as everyone begins discussing her offer, but it's the voice no one can hear that rings out the loudest. "V, what the _fuck_ do you think you're doing?" Silverhand demands, visibly incensed. V says nothing but does flash him a quick, vindictive look, relishing the way his fists close in and out as if seriously weighing the pros and cons of throttling her all over again.

Levi eventually pipes up again, the rest of the chatter dying down as a result, "My best fighter is Katherine Mitchell. Undefeated across a hundred matches. You still want to fight?"

"She could be Elizabeth Kress Junior for all I care. I can take anyone you've got, Mikahlov, and that's a guarantee."

"Better check the goddamn warranty, because even you don't fucking believe that," snarls Silverhand from his perch. V ignores him _and_ ignores the pit his words claw out of her gut, doing her damndest not to look at him directly.

Levi's smiling again. He holds up a hand, counting off as he goes, "The rules, then. No hacking, no screwing with user interface, no cyberware save for what's essential to function. Guns are forbidden, but blades and blunt weapons are permitted so long as they're not used for the killing blow. And above all:" Levi's grin grows so wide V can see the tobacco stains on his silver teeth, "be entertaining."

"I'm nothing if not."

His pleased expression hasn't once wavered since mentioning the name of his prized fighter; from the corner of her eye, V can see his goons exchanging similar looks when they think she's not watching, but she ignores it for now. Levi, all broad smiles and bright eyes, extends a hand. V shakes it.

"Thank you for your lovely proposition, Miss. Jones," Levi says. "I look forward to watching my ripperdoc peel that subdermal armor out of your managed corpse."

That elicits laughter from several of his huscle, and V spies passed-about grins as she's escorted out the door. The last thing she sees is Levi's eyes glowing blue as he connects to his holo with a wide smile.

She's ushered back down to the locker room and instructed to wait, so wait she does, keeping track of time by using the faint sounds of the crowd's reactions. One fight ends, allowing V to rewrap her hands. Another comes and goes, giving her enough time to take another MaxDoc for her bruise. When the third match is said and done, V's slipping her combat knife back into her boot when she's found by Levi's huscle. "Wait in the hall," she's ordered. "You and Kitty are up next."

By now, most of the fighters tonight have heard about her upcoming cage match, and every eye is on her as she moves towards the hallway to the ring. A few give her words of encouragement, either sincerely or lukewarmly. Several tell her she's dead meat. Most just stare at her as if already making funeral arrangements. A few of them might've been something to brush off but V counts at least two dozen men and women looking like they're watching a Roman get thrown to the lions.

V knows she's a dead girl walking in the most literal sense of the word. Strange when everyone else seems to know she's one, too.

She's led halfway down the tunnel and instructed to wait for the fight to end, so V does her pre-match stretches in the darkness. She wasn't expecting a fight before her cage match even started but it's an all-out war trying to shove this sense of foreboding down. It'd be far easier for her to say it's Silverhand's, but V thinks she's big enough to admit it's not. Ivy used to say there was nothing wrong with a little bit of fear if it kept the blood pumping.

The nasty voice in the back of her mind's telling her that this might be a tad more than a "little bit of fear", though.

Without warning, Silverhand's suddenly there, bearing down on her with an expression that could've wilted an entire field of synthcrops. "Are you out of your fucking mind!?" he screams right in her ear, nearly making V flinch. "Is this what your idea of 'clawing your way to the top' looks like!?"

"Shut up," V says exasperatedly.

"This chip is my one chance at making it back to the real world, at picking up where I started off," Silverhand goes on as if she hadn't said anything, "and I am _not_ having some cunt get my new body ripped in two."

V slips a brief Italian salute into her stretches and is beyond delighted when Silverhand recognizes it. "Feel free to berate me when I'm dead, rockerboy. For now, though? Keep your trap shut and let me handle this."

Silverhand opens his mouth to argue further but is interrupted by the knockout bell and the corresponding cheers from the crowds. By the time the fighters exit the ring, he's ghosted off, leaving V with nothing but his words and the leftover tang of his wrath as parting gifts.

V enters the ring from one side, acknowledging the crowd's cheers but occupied with something else. Above the ring, Levi and his gangoons watch from the office windows above the stands, and even from here V can see the way his silver teeth almost glow golden against the lights.

"And now, your arena champion…!"

V's generally considered her confidence unshakable. When the entire ring starts literally shaking underfoot, that could be the basis for some reworking of that notion.

"…Katherine 'Kitty' Mitchell!"

Another seism. V broadens her stance, the tremors throwing her off balance. If she had to place a guess, it feels like a minor earthquake is rocking the ring, but the bellowing of the crowd feeds into that stupid voice telling her she's gonna _wish_ it was an earthquake. And the quakes keep coming, the intervals between them shorter and shorter. The gates on the other side of the ring open to reveal a silhouette emerging from the darkness. It's about as broad as a barn door, moving slowly but powerfully.

" **What is that?"** Silverhand disembodied voice asks, sounding as on edge as she's feeling, and V can't find the words to answer him.

It's not an earthquake. It's footsteps. Large, heavy, formidable footsteps. From a large, heavy, formidable fighter.

Gradually, the shape takes form. She's wearing nothing but shorts and a sports bra but her muscles are so large and swollen that modesty hardly matters. She's dragging something long behind her; V's blood freezes when she recognizes it's an industrial sledgehammer, the thing nearly as long as her entire body.

V's organic leg goes numb. The hole in her gut's only grown, anxiety gnawing it wider and wider and wider, and all that foreboding she'd tried so hard to shove down is spilling out of it.

What was her opponent's name again?

Katherine. Right, Kitty for short.

A kitty, like an animal.

_Oh, fuck._

Someone rings the bell above their heads.

V barely has time to register the five hundred pounds of cybernetics and muscle currently barreling towards her at full speed.

Her legs work faster than her brain on that one. V's able to roll gracelessly out of the way a second before Kitty's shoulder nearly paints her across the wall of the arena. Her opponent careens past her, crashing into the wall so hard that the impact leaves a person-sized crater in the concrete. As the crowd roars with delight, an alarmed V somehow manages to scramble to her feet a few yards away, desperately trying to think of a plan.

With strength that shouldn't've been achievable through natural means alone, Kitty rips herself free from the hole she made in the wall of the ring, scattering debris everywhere. Dust and rocks cascade down arms as big as V's torso as she turns to face her, eyes an unnatural yellow and body laden with Frankenstein-esque muscle-enhancing cyberware. As soon as Kitty resettles herself, she shakes her mass of dark, gnarled hair out of her eyes, flashes V a smile full of pointed teeth, and charges again.

V's more prepared for her this time now that the initial shock's worn off. She quickly bounds to the side as Kitty rushes by, nearly unbalanced by the fierce jet stream that blows past her alongside her opponent. The lady doesn't even bother trying to stop, decelerating this time by letting herself pinball off the concrete. In that brief moment, she's still turned around, and V rushes up behind her, intent on taking out her knees and ankles first.

An arm flies out at a speed that should be impossible for a woman of that size.

A shocked V dives out of the way but not fast enough. Kitty's hand forms a viselike grip on her left ankle as she's suddenly pulled from her feet and flung across the ring like she's a goddamn frisbee, crashing back-first into the other side of the arena. The wind shooting from her body as she falls limply to the ground, wheezing. Kitty's grip on her leg had practically crunched her bones into powder, and there's the now all-too-familiar taste of blood on her tongue as it trickles from her nose and mouth. V, laying on her stomach, spits a glob of red onto the floor and tries to suck in a breath.

The crowd's going ballistic now, making so much noise that the chunks of wall next to her fingers are vibrating. Across the ring, Kitty readies the hammer, one bright yellow eye trained on her. V's eyes land on the massive Kerenzikov implant that she has installed up the length of her spine; its mechanisms whine and shriek as Kitty wheels her big body around with a dexterity she definitely shouldn't possess.

One of Levi's stupid rules of the fight reverberates through V's head, _"...no cyberware save for what's essential to function..."_

Oh, she is going to fucking eviscerate that man.

Soon as she's done murdering the giant slab of meat he's got her fighting, that is.

Pulling herself to her feet, V switches strategies. Kitty's seven feet of roided-out muscle that's far more agile than she's got any right to be. V's a full five-foot-nine of nothing compared to the skyscraper-sized gangoon she's fighting against, but that means she's smaller and harder to see. She just needs to use that to her advantage. Disorient her, then the knees and ankles. Easy.

That first step is the closest thing V's ever felt to pure physical torture, but through sheer force of will she maintains her balance. Kitty doesn't bother charging her this time. It's more of a lumber than a walk but it's slow enough that V can process it. Gripping the hammer with both hands, Kitty swings it over her head, ready to slam it down in a well-signaled attack.

Dodging was easy. Staying upright was not. The hammer misses but V's injured ankle rolls on the landing; while she's able to hop up quickly, she hasn't put enough distance between herself and Kitty, forcing her to scramble. V tries to finish darting around but Kitty's prepared for that— she drags the sledgehammer across the floor in a sweeping motion, taking out V's legs from under her before she can even get the chance to try again. Spitting dirt out of her mouth, V has to roll over the ground to avoid getting her chest stomped on. She's on her feet as quickly she can manage after that, only to find Kitty's boxing her in like a trapped mouse. V makes for the right; she's shoved back to center. She makes for the left; her arm nearly gets shattered by the sledgehammer. The Kerenzikov's whirring like a car engine on fire but it's doing its job, because there's no way for V to escape but backwards. One step, two steps, three steps, four.

And then she hits the wall.

V's chest heaves for air, heart beating ferociously in her throat. Kitty's leering down over her, eclipsing the overhead lights with her gargantuan shoulders. The metallic glint of the hammer's head catches the fluorescents and V can only watch the reflection of her eyes grow wider and wider and wider—

She ducks an instant before the sledgehammer turns her face into Slaughterhouse Prime. It drives right through where V's head was an instant ago and obliterates the wall instead, rubble pouring down like hail. Panicked and pinned against the concrete, V takes the only escape route she sees and dives between Kitty's legs, stumbling a bit as she takes to her feet and her twisted ankle protests. The other woman's already rounding on her, wrenching the sledgehammer from the wall like it wasn't just embedded six inches deep in concrete.

V's fucked. Kitty's too strong to survive a hit from yet too quick to outmaneuver. She's got no weak spots, no visible signs of fatigue, and there's no point in even trying to trade blows because V's not sure the lady can feel her punches. She might've been able to outlast her on endurance had Kitty not wrenched her ankle and hampered her maneuverability; each moment V spends on her left foot is an agonizing reminder of that, and she's acutely aware how boned she'll be if anything happens to the comparably fragile metal tendons in her other leg. There's only one way V can end this with her head still intact: quickly.

But how?

The next time she dodges Kitty's charge, it dawns on V that she's running on fumes. She's forced to make her landing solely on her right foot and staggers to one knee as a result, her breathing harsh and rapid in her ears. Won't be long before Kitty fully catches onto her game at this point. She's already managed to decelerate much faster than before, fully stopping without the aid of the wall this time. Her Kerenzikov's nearly louder than the crowds as it wheels Kitty around again, and that's when V notices it. It takes obvious time and effort to pivot a body that big, each movement careful and calculated.

That's her weak point. Kitty's Kerenzikov hastens the process, sure, but turning is still the slowest part of her fighting style. Her entire back is exposed during the good five seconds it takes to make a turn, maybe even more so if V can disorient her enough.

That solved one problem, but then there's the problem of making the killing blow. She could play dirty, use her knife and end this with one swift blow to the jugular, but V's never been more determined to beat someone at their own game than she is right now. Guess that means it's a matter of knocking Kitty out and ending it from there, and that leaves one vital area to aim for. The neck.

Her arms'll never be able to properly block her airway, but her bootlace might help with that. Either way, V can't just reach up and put Kitty in a stranglehold. She's gonna have to climb the lady like a squirrel, and she'll need a foothold to do it.

Or she needs to make a foothold.

The solution to that comes quickly as well.

V unsheathes her combat knife from her boot. The handle's about four inches long. Sturdy enough, too, or at least able to take some weight. If she can get it where it needs to be, this entire thing might just work.

Well, times up. Kitty's turned around with murder in her eyes and the sledgehammer in her hands. V places her weight on her toes, passing the knife from one hand to the other, and waits.

When Kitty charges again, she's ready.

V doesn't jump this time. Instead, she keeps her feet and charges directly to the left, making for the furthest wall. Kitty slams on the brakes and the sounds of her skidding over the floor are drowned out by her frustrated shouts. V hits the wall and pauses, then races for the other side. The entire ring rocks so hard V worries it'll collapse the second Kitty hits the spot V just was, but she can't turn fast enough to catch her. The two women hit the wall at the same time, both on opposite sides.

V wheels around. Kitty's still turning; her Kerenzikov's almost smoking at this point from the effort it's putting in to keep her moving. With her opponent still distracted, V draws on the last of her strength, takes the knife in her right hand, and charges her.

Kitty's facing V by the time she's nearly reached her, and the surprise in her face'd be humorous in a different situation. She tries reaching an arm out like she did before but this time it's V who's prepared. She breaks into a slide, passing underneath her outstretched hand. V flips herself over, hits the barrier with her right foot, and thrusts herself upwards, gripping the knife with both hands as she plunges it directly into Kitty's lower back, just to the right of her Kerenzikov.

The howl of pain that follows nearly bursts V's eardrums. A massive hand is blindly swung at her, sending V tumbling through the dust and rubble, but the job is done. V raises her head to see the knife sticking hilt-deep out in the small of Kitty's back— she's dropped the hammer to paw at her back with both hands in an attempt to grab it, but the muscles on her arms are so swollen that she can't reach the thing, never mind yank it out.

Kitty's so distracted that she doesn't see V push herself to one knee, rapidly untying her right boot. By some miracle, she quickly unthreads the whole lace and yanks it out, tossing her shoe into the crowd. Up she comes, bouncing from one foot to the other, testing her weight, her muscles, her strength. V starts winding the ends of her bootlace around both palms. "Hey! Kitty!" she barks. "Over here!"

A pair of blazing yellow eyes answers her. Kitty abandons her efforts to rip the knife out and, possessed by a crazed fury, charges her with reckless abandon. Rather than waiting and dodging, V backpedals. Kitty's closing the distance quickly but V holds her ground. Back, back, back, just a little further...

_Now!_

V dives to the side at the last second, landing on her elbows and knees and rolling, all while her ankle's ablaze with pain. Kitty blows past her like an out-of-control car and drives herself directly in the wall, having had no time to stop or realign herself. With her window blasted open, V stands one last time, takes a running start, and leaps onto Kitty's exposed back. The handle of the knife wobbles a touch but it stays in its place long enough for V to plant her right foot and push off of it, springing up and landing on the woman's massive shoulders.

In one fluid motion, V hooks the shoelace over her opponent's throat and jerks back as hard as she can.

Kitty's scream is cut short by V's improvised garrote. By the time she's realized what's happened, her struggles have grown weaker, drained by lack of oxygen. She stumbles, sways, trying to make a grab for V but unable to yank her down. So she tries driving her back into the wall, and while getting slammed into concrete hurts like a motherfucker, it only makes V grit her teeth and pull tighter.

Kitty's struggles are growing weaker to the point where V can kick her arms down effortlessly. Tighter.

She's wobbling now, swaying dangerously like she's caught in a gale. Tighter.

Her attempts at sucking in air are choked, frantic, and pointless. Tighter, tighter, _tighter…_

Until finally, like a murderous Saguaro cactus, the fighter formerly known as Kitty topples over.

V rides her the whole way to the ground, leaving the entire ring rocking when the pair of them hit it. Standing on wobbly legs, the first thing V does is retrieve her knife, wiping it off on Kitty's shirt before sheathing it. Then, she rolls the right leg of her pants up to her knee and plants a metal heel on Kitty's head, rolling small circles in the dirt with the woman's nose.

She thinks she's dead. Though to be fair, there was so much meat around that Juiced-up neck of hers that V's not sure if she killed her or merely knocked her out.

B **e** t **t** e **r** b **e** s **u** r **e** , r **i** g **h** t **?**

V raises her heel and slams it down, then does it again, and again, and again. Once does very little. The second cracks the skull open like a rotten synthmelon. The third splatters blood, brain matter, and circuitry everywhere. The fourth is just because V's feeling rather pissy. When she's done, blood coats most of her person and there's an unmistakable stench of death and bile settling over the ring. The bell rings one final time. Half the crowd boos her victory while the other half cheers for it. It might've been the sweetest sound V's ever heard in Night City.

But V only has eyes for one person and one person only at the moment.

She doesn't see him in the windows but she knows where he's probably gone now. V's limping pretty hard yet she refuses to let it slow her down, taking her pace at a steady stagger. Back in the locker room, she brushes past the stunned congratulations of the other fighters and climbs up the stairs, leaving a trail of crimson footprints in her wake. V doesn't even bother with the office and instead makes for the ripper's clinic, kicking the door in.

Levi Mikahlov, his ripper, and several of his huscle break apart at V's unannounced entrance. The sight of her— a filthy, furious, and possibly unhinged edgerunner who's covered in the blood of his best fighter (and that doesn't even include the knife he knows she has and V's still debating on putting to his throat)— smothers any remaining fight in Levi's eyes. He nods to her as she approaches, stammering out a greeting, "W-w-w-well f-fought, Miss. Jones."

"Less talking, more ripping."

"Yes—"

"And I better see my goddamn money in my account by the time you're done, or you're gonna see what else I can do with this jank-ass leg of mine."

Levi's face can't seem to decide if it wants to go green or white so it settles for something right in the middle. Wordlessly, he gestures to his ripper chair, which V climbs into with a curt nod. The ripperdoc has the sense to pass her a MaxDoc before he begins, and she sucks down the entire thing before chucking it into a corner.

The anesthetic is administered silently, as though folk're terrified she's going to strangle them all too if they utter a single word she doesn't like. As V feels herself drifting off, she catches sight of two things.

One is the monowire. _Her_ monowire, she corrects herself with a twinge of pride. The ripperdoc is cleaning it thoroughly for the operation and V appreciates that he's at least a man of principles: Hippocratic Oath and all that jazz. Levi's watching the entire thing like he's ready to hurl but he at least has the sense to hold his tongue.

The other is Silverhand. V didn't even see him reappear, yet there he is, leaning on the wall next to the door with his arms crossed and his brow furrowed. He's watching the scene play out with a mixture of irritation and amusement on his features. He's as silent as Levi is, even though V can feel he has a piece to say, but he just looks on for now, uncharacteristically reticent. The resulting feelings of confusion are the last thing she feels before V finally goes under.

~*~*~

Night City's never quiet. The sounds are just softer around this hour, the world passing by at a different decibel. Life exists in the forms of muted parties in Santo Domingo houses, or in the steady hum of car tires over pavement, in the occasional indistinct body she passes by in the dark that she doesn't acknowledge in the same manner they don't acknowledge her. Life doesn't need to be moving in order for it to be lived, and that's probably both a good and bad thing in retrospect.

V leaves the plant around half past midnight with a brand-new toy and four thousand eddies in her wallet, but she's far from ready to hoof it back to Jackie's and call it a night. Aimless and restless wandering leads her beneath an overpass in Rancho Coronado, surrounded by overflowing dumpsters, busted car frames, and trash piled two stories high. With little else to do, V sets up a small range for herself with the litter and gets practicing, if only to let off some steam and work off some nerves.

The monowire port runs along the inside of her wrist, the skin still red and irritated from the installation. Levi's ripperdoc was kind enough to install composite ceramic grips on her palm and fingers to handle the damn thing, because it's powerful enough to slice a car down the middle and unwieldy enough that V won't rule out maiming herself before she even gets the chance to try. She swipes the monowire at the array of bottles and cans she's set up a few feet away, missing low. The wire's so hot that when it brushes over the ground, it leaves sparks in the weeds that V's forced to stamp out with her boot.

Sounds of slow clapping make her glance at Silverhand, who sits several feet away on a bumper, observing her efforts. He's even smoking that damn digital cigarette again. "Does that even do anything for you?" V dares to ask, double checking that no one's around to hear her.

He takes another drag. "Not a fucking bit," Silverhand admits.

"Then why're you bothering?"

"Why're _you_ bothering with that nano-whatever. It's past one in the morning and you're goddamn exhausted. And don't try to tell me you're not, kid," he interjects before V can get a word in edgewise. "My body too, remember?"

V feels whatever leftover good mood she had curdle instantly. "It's not your body, it's mine," she bites back. "Stop pretending like you give a damn about me."

When he doesn't immediately counter that, V tries again with the monowire but is so incensed that she misses high this time. The cord gashes the concrete of the overpass, leaving an ugly, crooked scar in its wake.

Silverhand glitches from the car and reappears besides her, flicking the old cig away and lighting a new one as he goes. He's looking at her so strangely that V can't help but raise a brow, "What?"

"Of all the gonks in this city I could've been woken up in, I had to get stuck inside the head of the craziest bitch this side of the border."

Grinding her teeth, V takes another strike with the monowire rather than stoop down to his level. The cord lashes out in a streak of yellow light and finally strikes a bottle, exploding it into small shards. It also slashes an inch-deep welt across a dumpster on the way back into its port, but hey, V'll take progress where she can get it.

"You're a terrible shot with that thing, y'know."

"Don't you have anything to contribute that's not just you bitching?" V finally snaps, whirling on him. "No 'wow, V, that was awesome' or 'damn, V, the way you killed that lady got me all hot and bothered'? Nothing?"

Silverhand takes a drag on his cigarette and blows the smoke in her face. It doesn't do anything, because of course it doesn't, but it irks V all the same. "Begging Daddy Johnny for praise? Jesus, V, you're crossing from 'barely tolerable' to 'desperately pathetic' at speeds formerly unknown to man."

V frowns, readying the monowire again. This time, her slash is short rather than high, hitting nothing but air and returning to her uncontrollably. V screams out as it grazes her palm on the way back into the port.

"Kid, for fuck's sake, you're asleep on your feet. Go home."

His words come with a blast of guilt so sudden and strong it nearly knocks her down. "It's not home, it's Jackie's place. There's a difference," V mumbles.

"It could be the freaking ninth circle of Hell for all I care. It's got a bed, so go there and lie down on it," Silverhand insists.

"It's not home," V keeps repeating, even if she's not quite sure why. Not like the admission brings her comfort, after all, "I can't go back there. Not like this."

"So you're just gonna sit out here all night, smashing tequila bottles until you feel better?"

"Maybe."

Silverhand appears to abandon that train of thought, throwing his hand up in defeat. "Why'd you pick that fight?" is his next accusation.

"Cause I thought I could win," V says matter-of-factly.

"Was that before or after you found out you were fighting Godzilla taken human form?"

"Look, call it what you want, but I don't need to justify myself to a corpse. It's over, I won, be happy I didn't get ripped in two. That enough?"

"I don't get you, V," she finds that Silverhand often paces when he's parsing through a thought he feels strongly about. "Half the reason you pulled that stunt was to stick it to that Scav and the other half was to stick it to me. You're practically a moral vagabond: blitzing through life like you're above giving a shit. You really fine with not believing in anything?"

"I don't _need_ to believe in anything. I believe in myself," V says curtly.

He rakes his real hand down his face at that, "Oh my god, spare me the 'Live Laugh Love' bullshit. You're making me wanna stick an iron in my own mouth."

Ignoring Silverhand's melodramatics, V's about to keep working with the monowire before she catches sight of her hand again. It's cut a thick slice right down the middle of her ballistic compressor, the blood that'd welled up instantly cauterized from the heat. V flexes her hand, wincing at the subsequent jab of pain, "Look, I put my faith in other people a long time ago. My family's gone, my best friend's dead, and I'm next in line to punch my ticket to the pearly gates. What's the point of putting my life in someone else's hands?"

"Not even saying you should, but remember: my head too. And I know this whole 'stone cold bitch' attitude's eating you the fuck up inside."

"Congrats. Guess I oughta add 'shitty armchair psychiatrist' to your list of credentials now," V fires back.

It's the first time she's ever actually seen Silverhand give up on an argument as it's happening. He opens his mouth, closes it, and glitches away with a wave of his hand like she's not even worth the breath he's drawing. And in another world, it might've made V angry to the point of a pride-fueled tongue lashing.

But all she feels now is beaten down.

It's times like these when V wishes she had Kai with her. When she had no one else to talk to, she usually always had him. Jackie was a good substitute but never as good as the original. How many nights had she and Kai stayed up until dawn, just talking about shit? Life, love, becoming scouts, making fun of the other Bakkers, all while listening to those stupid bands he adored but she hated. They might've argued a few times, but nothing ever felt _permanent_ with Kai, their occasional fights like pictures drawn into the sand.

Even if just for a night, she's sick of arguing with no destination. The more times V thinks she makes a point and wins her case, the more wasted the process becomes. One Silverhand loves indulging her in just as much as she loves indulging him.

With a weary sigh, V trudges to one of the trash piles, rifling through them one at a time until she eventually finds an old, yellowed mattress. She drags it over to the dumpster, collapsing on it right as Silverhand reappears, "What're you doing?"

"Gonna try to sleep, rockerboy. Ain't that what you wanted?"

Silverhand exhales, glancing up at the sky as if appealing to any deity that'd listen for help, "There's a perfectly fine bed back in the Glen waiting for you to crash on it."

"Glen's too far," V murmurs. "'Sides, some fresh air'll do me better than that place anyway."

He's quiet for a minute or so, but caves when he realizes her mind's made up. Settling himself some few feet away from her, he leans his head against the dumpster and exhales, picking at the ground. "Some fresh air," he mutters. "Smells like ass out here."

"Sure that's not the cigarettes?" V quips. Silverhand does exactly what she expects of him— blow a cloud of smoke into the air and flip her off, and it's so childish she can't help but roll her eyes and scoff at it.

The silence that follows is a sheet of glass between them that neither dares to shatter first. They're locked into this sort of tolerance of the other, quiet yet reluctant. As V sits and waits for him to recede back into her head (he doesn't, the stubborn bastard), she tosses and turns, listening as the rumblings of the occasional car overhead become the only sound for miles.

It really does smell like ass out here.

"What do you believe in, Silverhand?" V finds herself asking.

He replies without missing a beat: "The flying spaghetti monster."

"Har har."

He smiles slightly, willing to take her laughter at face value. He tilts his head back and studies the night sky for a time, tapping his cigarette against his pants.

"I guess, back in the day, I used to believe in the city. Night City's a cesspool, yeah, but s'pose I used to think had good people holding it up on their shoulders. Thought the more I screamed into a microphone, the more people'd eventually listen. Stopped believing in that around 2013, and then… guess I started believing in me and my own two fists. Figured if no one else was gonna help me out, then fuck it: Johnny Silverhand Against the World it was," his next drag is so aggressive the cigarette burns right down to the filter. Silverhand flicks the stub away and they both watch it disappear into a flurry of blue pixels, "Subscribed to the Dr. Strangelove method of dealing with problems and that was that."

V gapes at him, "Why'd you give me so much shit when you're basically saying the same thing?"

"Because I'm a digitized ghost who's been dead for fifty years and you're a crazy woman sleeping on a cum-stained mattress under an overpass. Can't exactly say 'believing in ourselves' has worked out great for either of us."

Rolling over, V finds herself looking at the stars too. Or, what would've been the stars, at least. There's so much smog and light pollution that the Milky Way can't appear even on the clearest of nights, so V's left with nothing but an ugly indigo canvas. "I'm not like you. Picking fights I can't win, acting so high and mighty all the time," she finds herself saying, more for herself than to prove any sort of point.

Silverhand's next words are a blow to the jaw in all but name; "Damn straight, you're not like me. Least what I believed in was worth blowing up 'Saka Tower for— the thing you believe in can't even be bothered to haul her ass back to her couch."

V pushes herself upright, a tirade on the tip of her tongue, only to discover Silverhand's vanished again. More embittered and frustrated than before, she flops back on her improvised bed and tucks her arm under her head, simmering. The minutes pass, and pass, and pass, and soon it's been a half an hour and she's no closer to falling asleep than she was before.

It's one-thirty in the morning, it's dark as shit out, sleeping there'll never be worth the time it took to trek all that way, but fuck it. V pulls herself from the garbage and starts moving, one foot in front of the other. Her cybernetic leg's stiff and her left ankle definitely shouldn't be undertaking three more miles tonight, but guess that means V's putting herself in a MaxDoc-induced coma for a day if this'll all stop her thoughts from swirling.

She starts grumbling aloud without much thought as to why. Could be catharsis, despondency, wrath, or a combination of all three, "I'm not doing this for you, I'm doing this for me. You hear that, rockerboy? For me."

Once again, his lack of response speaks more volumes than anything he could've ever said to her directly. Thus, V begins the long odyssey back to Jackie's apartment, growling expletives under her breath that get more entertainingly colorful with every step she takes. And as she wanders, V takes in all the little pulses of life within Night City, wondering each time if they really were worth believing in so fiercely.


	4. Renegade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the kudos, comments, and bookmarks!
> 
> The imagery and descriptions of hacking and netrunning are partially taken from demos of CP2077 than what's shown in-game (in this case, from the 2018 gameplay demo).

It's funny— V's never smoked a day in her life. Ivy'd always been a hardass and tried to tell V how she should focus on sending good messages to the younger Bakkers kids, lest they'd slip down into the surefire freefall that was hedonism. Didn't stop V, Kai, and the other kids their age from nicking the veterans' booze when they were teens and drinking like sinners before a confessional, but V'd at least attempted to steer clear of smokes, even when everyone else started trading the clothes on their backs for them as they got older. Her mother went ballistic the first time she found a pack in Kai's jacket, but he was never going to listen to Ivy anyway. Never did listen to anyone, that kid: not even her.

Now, though? All V finds herself wanting to do is blitz through about seven packs at once, so much so that she's starting to tweak out a bit from it. She's sweating more than she used to in the past. Sleeping less, too. Not to mention she's almost constantly dizzy. That last one's not helped by the fact that she's currently seven hundred feet in the air, hunched over one of the security boxes of Dex's apartment complex.

A week of chasing leads has led V here, to a drab high-rise smack-dab in the heart of Charter Hill. Tracking the man even to this point had been a chore, and an expensive chore at that. V'd gotten anyone she'd thought would be spineless enough to spill the beans on Dex, especially if a little encouragement could grease their jaws. Former mercs, a huscleman or two, even a joytoy Dex'd occasionally employed before he'd left the city. V talked with every single one of them, yet very few had anything viable. It was only when she managed to get in contact with some eccentric fixer from Pacifica did she get anything actually useful: that Dex had bought a new apartment after moving back into Night City proper following his "vacation". Mr. Hands'd even tell her which building if she wanted. For a price, of course, because what was this, a charity? The rest she'd have to discover for herself.

Not like V had a real choice. This'd been the only tangible lead she'd found, as per her luck, so it was laughable that there were other options she had to choose from (something V had a feeling Mr. Hands knew and was more than willing to take advantage of). Not without some crow eating, V forked over the rest of her eddies for the address and booked it for Charter Hill as soon as Mr. Hands delivered on his word.

The dress code was funeral attire. Black shirt, black pants, black boots, black hoodie. V walked into the lobby with a pack of cigarettes in her pocket and her pistol tucked into her waistband, face hidden underneath a blue menpō. Mr. Hands had been kind enough to let slip the location of an unmonitored security panel on the roof, so up the elevator V went. By seven o'clock, she'd already set to work, the sun disappearing between the City Center skyscrapers soon after as though unable to bear what she was about to do.

This complex has upwards of four thousand tenants and Dexter DeShawn's hiding somewhere among them, probably sleeping on sheets made of real silk with his thumb in his mouth, unaware his would-be assassin is lurking so far above. If only she could fucking _find the man._

This'd be a bajillion times easier for a slew of reasons, but V's either run out of horseshoes and clovers and the universe isn't willing to cut her a break because of it, or she just gets a kick out of making things harder for herself. She could've gotten Dex's room if she paid more money, but she didn't _have_ more money, so V resigned herself to solving that problem when she got there. She could've spent more time preparing, but the longer that motherfucker spent alive, the likelier it was that he'd slip from her fingers. She could've bought an actual cyberdeck, but again, no fucking eddies to spend. Besides, V knew how she would end Dex's life the moment the thought of revenge crossed her mind.

With that, she unslots her shitty Bakker cyberdeck and inspects it out of habit. It's an absolute piece of obsolete garbage, carbon-dated way back before she was born if Mr. Haskins was telling the truth. He wasn't nearly as good with hacking as he was with an engine or cyberware, nor did he pretend to be, but he was wily enough to cram his own homemade tricks onto this teeny old thing. V's cyberdeck contained nothing except one quickhack, and even that wasn't really a _quick_ hack, since it required her to be plugged in to someone's biomon, making it pretty useless except in the direst of circumstances.

It means that V's gotta get to Dex the hard way— by breaching the building's security network from a direct link and hacking her way through.

And V fucking despises hacking.

Might be the one thing she hates more than the man she's trying to kill. V'd never had the need to learn how to use the Net beyond the bare-bones basics and never cultivated the patience to figure it out when she got older, so her personal link's been more useful as something to humorously thwack people with than as a tool for her merc career. And honestly, V still feels that way, never mind what NC's netrunners and techies might say. Fuck the Net. Nothing good ever happens in cyberspace. Bartmoss turned the Net into his own personal hellscape and the only way V'd ever set virtual foot into that place is if she knew she'd find a million eddies or God Himself waiting on the other side. But here she is. Here she fucking is. Doing something she swore she'd never ever do, like she's the punchline in a bad sitcom.

Slotting her cyberdeck back in, V draws in a few deep breaths to steel herself. She'd always compared hacking to jumping into deep water— the more you did it, the more confident you were that you wouldn't drown. But when you're just starting out, it's terrifying. You can't tell where you're going, how you'll stay afloat, what kind of death awaits you in the dark if you slip too far under. At the end of the day, it becomes a leap of faith, and faith's never been something V's had in spades.

V sizes up to the access port, draws her personal link, and plugs it back in. Red data lines stream across her optics, and then the world begins to fade into a calm black. _Okay, V, you can do this._

It's not the dark that scares V, but rather the loss of all sensation. Netdiving starts off like floating, peaceful and buoyant, and then you sink. The further down you go, the more sensations you lose. First to go is touch, then smells, and then your awareness of your own body. It's as if someone's laid a pillow over your face: not with enough force that V feels like she's suffocating, but it's unhuman enough that it still makes her seize up, makes her air catch in her throat. Before she knows it, she's thrashing, panic overtaking her as the unknown drags her further and further down until finally, mercifully, she rips herself away, and back to the surface world she rises.

V wrenches her hand away from the access point, her personal link jerking free and slinking back into its port. Stumbling back, she cradles her head with her free hand while the real world gradually returns to her in bits and pieces. The arid stench of the rooftop she's been squatting on comes first, then all the hazy neons of Westbrook glowing above and below and around her, and finally that black sky stretched out above her head with the moon dangling so tantalizingly low V could've reached out and stolen it right from the heavens if she wanted to.

In between slow, labored breaths comes the reaction from her one-man peanut gallery, "Still no luck?"

"What's it look like?" V fires back, her ire born less from actual malice and more from a frustration that refuses to stop piling up, not that Silverhand'd care either way. For her supposed "fairy godmother", he's been awfully unhelpful tonight, sitting atop one of the building's massive AC bulkheads and watching her like he'd rather be doing literally anything else.

"That's been…" Silverhand stops to consider the numbers, "what, four times you've tried and failed a breach?"

Five, actually, but who's counting? "This shit's not exactly my bread and butter," V offers the excuse, massaging her wrist. Silverhand grunts his agreement before leaning back on his elbows to gaze up at the sky.

It's cold up here without the sun, one long, unbroken gust of wind rippling through the open air. Pulling down the menpō, V blows into her hands before sticking them in her armpits, taking a break to walk off some of her agitation. Those cravings are still there. In fact, they've only grown stronger if anything, "I'm not smoking for you."

"Quit being a Girl Scout, one's not gonna hurt," Silverhand yells back, not bothering to glance her way. V turns and moves as far from him as she can, trying her best not to shiver. Distance is something she can put between her and Silverhand but not between her and his withdrawals, annoyingly enough. Pulling out the pack, V compromises by sticking a cigarette in her mouth but not lighting it, just gnawing on the filter instead. Yeah, it doesn't really work, but she likes to pretend it does.

_Relic Malfunction Detected_

As a pain like talons traps V in its grip, the world starts breaking down and it's a mental struggle for the ages to piece it back together. Two minutes of agony and deliriousness pass her by before the malfunction subsides, leaving her gasping for air against the guardrail like she's gone ten rounds in a ring and is gearing up to do an eleventh.

When it's all said and done, a depleted V finds herself clutching Misty's bullet pendant, staring out into the eastern Badlands. Trash piles higher than some of Night City's buildings loom in the distance. Somewhere in there is where this whole thing both ended and started. It'd be fitting to do the same to Dex but not possible in the slightest, not that V's ever been one for poetics. Dramatics, maybe, but not poetics; ulterior meanings are for people much smarter and far less literal than she is.

"Don't do it, V," Silverhand calls out to her, disturbing her thoughts, "remember what the shrinks say: you've got so much to live for."

She can't stop herself from scoffing, "What, a few days in my head and you suddenly start growing a conscience on me?"

"You seem to constantly forget I have a vested interest in keeping that body in one piece."

V wrinkles her nose and fidgets with her hoodie's zipper.

"Be a doll and light that smoke for me, will ya?"

"Fuck off, Silverhand."

"Hey, don't be a bitch. I asked nicely."

"How? You didn't even say 'please'."

There's that back and forth again. The more she indulges him with conversation, the more it seems to dissolve into petty bickering, like they're parents in divorce court. And the more she notices that, the easier V can identify the parts of him she hates and the parts of her that she's never given much thought because… well, it was simpler not to, if she was being honest with herself. Silverhand is egotistical, more than a touch misogynistic, incapable of thinking about others, rude as all hell, and topping it all off is the fact that he's got an incurable case of massivefuckingdouchebag-itis. But everything V spits back at him is cutting and poisonous in its own way, each word carrying a small sample of her own worldly failings. Her rage, her bullheadedness, her short temper, her haughtiness, her self-loathing, her loneliness, and the way she uses all of them to build walls to hide behind far quicker than Silverhand does.

Turns out bitchiness and dickishness were two sides of the same coin. Who knew?

Silverhand's not exactly the kind of person to extend olive branches but V's definitely the kind of person that'd be knocking them out of his hands if he was. She just can't help that the part of V telling her to stop is drowned out by that part of her constantly insisting how it's V versus everyone else. One ex-nomad against the scum of the NUSA itself. Jackie'd been the exception, and a fat load of good that did him. Not for the first time, V hopes there's not a heaven, because she can't bear the thought of him looking down at her while she pisses away her final chance at vengeance.

She rolls the cigarette from one side of her mouth to the other. V doesn't have a lighter, something half of her's grateful for and the other half's agonizing over. Half her, half him— push and pull. Two snakes determined to swallow the other's tail.

The nicotine cravings don't bother V the most. The loss of identity does, what giving into that piece of his subconscious would mean for her. The more sadistic part of V's been rewinding Vik's words over and over again in her head every night, how the Relic'll eventually whittle away so much of her that she won't even notice when she becomes more Silverhand than V. How long can she hold out until she willingly sacrifices a part of herself to sate him? Say she lights a single smoke, and then what comes next? Wearing leather? Forming a shitty band? Getting a thermonuclear warhead and launching a one-person assault against Arasaka? The more she dwells on it, the more afraid she becomes. The more afraid she becomes, the more she subsequentially hates herself for feeling it.

It's similar to netdiving, V decides. If netdiving's like jumping into the sea, then caving to Silverhand's psyche's like stepping off a cliff. Both involve falling, both involve a fear of hers, both involve giving into something. Yet there's only one scenario between the two where resurfacing is a possibility.

V's her only line of defense against the tide of Johnny Silverhand's crusade against corporate inevitability. It's a burden too heavy for anyone's shoulders, and she'd love nothing more to stamp her feet and scream how unfair it was that this responsibility had to've fallen to her. But she can't do that. She's sworn to herself that she can't buckle under that fear, won't dare show a single ounce of weakness in front of anyone but especially in front of him. Life's not fair by nature— it doesn't give a damn how it beats you down. Life only cares about if you can survive what it does to you. V just tries not to think about the fact that she's already failed once and is well on her way to failing again.

The appearance of blue and silver code lines diverts her attention. Materializing back into existence, Silverhand leans his back against the same guardrail she's staring out over, "It's no wonder you're a horrible hacker. You're tense as shit."

V's first instinct is to raise her hackles and snap, but something stops her, "What's that supposed to mean?"

Silverhand looks her over, and somehow V can tell he's trying to figure out if her question's got an insult attached or is just that: a question. After some consideration, he seems to decide on the latter, "Ever wonder why some netrunners act like they've smoked a brick before pulling jobs? It's because the Net isn't something you can muscle through. You gotta ease into it. Think less 'charging through wall' and more 'going down slide'. Goes against your modus operandi, I know, but even you're not stupid enough to fuck up going down a slide."

"Where'd you learn all this?" she asks, gagging a bit as she bites too hard on the cig and gets a mouthful of tobacco for her troubles.

"Y'know how many netrunners I knew back in the day? Spider Murphy, Frack and Edgar, even had some run-ins with Bartmoss 'fore he went coocoo. Just how many runners worth their salt have _you_ come across? And that one chick doesn't count, by the way."

V instantly pulls back. "Her name was T-Bug," she hisses.

"Congratulations, you gave enough of a shit to remember her name. Go write her stinking obituary if she meant that much to you," he takes a step forward to match her step back, nose to nose, "You're not careful, and you'll end up the same way she did: her brains roasted—"

Silverhand breaks off, and it's a second or two before V realizes the reason why is because she's got a hand gripping him by the shoulder of his vest, the other pulled back in a trembling fist. She doesn't strike him yet. She doesn't let him go yet. She just stands there, lungs burning for a deliverance she's never going to receive.

"Ya gonna do it, V? You gonna punch my lights out?" Silverhand's voice betrays nothing. No fear, no anger, not a single drop of uncertainty. His gaze doesn't waver from her, clear and steady despite being hidden behind aviators, "Do it, then. What's stopping you?"

He already knows her answer. She already knows her answer, too.

A few more heartbeats tick by and V shoves him away. She spits the cigarette into Silverhand's face, watches it pass through him with an unsatisfying fizzle, and stalks back to the security box without a backwards glance.

As V readies herself once more, Silverhand re-glitches next to her, an appeasing hand extended, "Look, listen to me or don't, but it's in your best interests to cool your tits before you dive back in."

V flashes him a cold smile, "Perfect! I'm not listening to you, rockerboy, but I appreciate the disclaimer. Glad we're on the same page."

"What is it with you!?" Silverhand shoves her so suddenly and so aggressively that V actually staggers back several steps, ranting on as she recovers, "I'm trying to help you get what you want and there you go, chomping my head off a-fucking-gain. I give you advice, you ignore it and wind up in even deeper shit. I tell you what to do, you don't do it and wind up in even deeper shit. And here I am, going outta my way to help you when you're in way over your skis, and what do you do? Snap at me, bitch at me, on and on and on! And guess what? _You're probably gonna end up in even deeper shit!_ "

"Do you need it spelled out!? I don't want your help!" V screams back, her face burning.

"You can say it 'til you're blue in the face, V, but it don't change the fact that you fucking _need_ help."

_Olive branches._

V's retaliation crumbles in her throat when the understanding hits her, the rest of her resolve crashing down with it. There she goes again— building walls and lashing out from behind them, and around and around they go. He's right, she's already proven that she can't do this without help.

What is she more afraid of right now? Losing herself, or losing her last chance to settle her score?

V still doesn't jack in. Not yet, anyway. She eyeballs him, "What if I don't trust you?"

"That's your hang-up," she can't see his eyes, but he's surely rolling them. "Trust me or not, Johnny Silverhand always keeps his word. Now jack in. We don't have all night."

She pauses, inhales, and nods, all while Silverhand merely gestures to the access port. Pushing down her anxiety along with her fear, V unrolls her personal link and plugs it into the security box. The red code floods in, and she's plunged back into the Net once again.

At once, everything goes dark. V opens her mouth and when no air comes in or out, she closes it, grinding her teeth. The pressure grows and grows but while V's not pulling back out, she's not diving any deeper, leaving her adrift in this no man's land between cyberspace and realspace, and it's scaring the living shit out of her.

That's when Silverhand's voice cuts through. It's distant and distorted, like V's hearing it underwater, **"Kid, relax. You're clenching so hard up here that you're about to break your own spine."**

Actual words fail her, so V thinks instead, _I can't breathe. I need to pull out._

She swears she hears Silverhand grumble something that sounds suspiciously like "oh my god" before he says, more clearly this time, " **V, you need to get a hold of yourself. What, a little dive into the Net gets too difficult and you freeze? You got tech inside your head that's turning your brain into tapioca, you went toe-to-toe with a woman the size of a Kaukaz, and** _ **this**_ **is what gives you cold feet? C'mon, kid; I've been up here all of two weeks and even I know you're being ridiculous."**

Is that… _respect_ she hears in his words? It's such an absurd concept that V gasps out a laugh at it. The pressure over her face and chest slightly dissipates as she does so. V draws another breath, lets it out slowly.

**"That's it, in and out. Focus on that."**

She feels her eyes close, not that it really matters in this void she's drifting through, and tries to focus on the process. In and out, in and out. Each one gets a bit easier, every inhale soaking up the tautness in her body and every exhale releasing it. Even so, when she feels herself starting to sink further down, it's difficult to repress the instinct to kick upwards.

Silverhand states what she's already thinking, **"Never gonna reach the bottom like that, V."**

Retaining enough of herself to gulp, V gives in, leans back, and down the rabbit hole she goes.

It's less like letting go than she realizes. She hates to give him credit, but it _does_ feel like sliding down a slope. The closest thing she can relate it to is riding down a sand dune on her old Apollo when she was nineteen; V'd gone too fast over the crest, and while she didn't wreck on the way down, she definitely didn't feel in command of her bike. This is similar— a release of the controls, descending without your hands on the handlebars and hoping you don't eat shit at the bottom. The further V slips, the less bound to her body she feels, but she won't dare back out now. Breathe in, breathe out, again and again and again.

**"Wakey wakey, kid. Ready to crack this nut wide open?"**

V opens her eyes. She certainly doesn't feel physically here, her body gone dormant like a holo call that's been put on hold, but she's at least retained enough awareness to be cognizant inside this place she's landed. Scarlet lines of code form arms, a torso, then legs and finally feet. Her clothes hang loosely over her frame like they do in the real world but V can't feel the chill in the air nor the firmness of stone underfoot. Blue webs form a crude replication of the high-rise's roof, and beyond that lies absolutely nothing: a black void on all sides. There's a blue slab roughly the size of a garage door where the access port would've been, and in front of it stands a red figure that V takes embarrassingly long to recognize as Silverhand, the Samurai logo on the back of his vest just barely visible against the rest of him.

She takes her steps cautiously at first, as though scared the ground will cave in and swallow her. "Where are we?" she asks, marveling at how far her voice echoes into the nothingness around them.

"Security system's subnet, or at least the entrance to it," Silverhand answers without looking back.

V's eyes drift to the endless black that waits for her off the rooftop's edge, "What's out there?"

"Nothing good," is his nebulous reply. V continues staring out over the abyss until the reverb of fingers snapping tears her away from it, "Hey, kid, eyes on the prize. Let's go."

As V gets closer to the wall standing before them, it becomes more and more apparent that it's not what it appears to be at first glance. It's actually a thick mass of code, composed of hundreds of thousands of numbers in either ascension or descension. The wall's stable, but thick and impenetrable, and V's got no clue as to what could possibly await her on the other side.

"Alright, good thing for you's that this is actually a pretty basic piece of ICE," Silverhand explains while she examines it. "It's designed more with frustration in mind, not actual security. The computer pumps out random numbers to fill in the gaps between user usage, on and on and on until the system's clogged up with code. From the outside it looks pretty busy 'til you realize that every number you see here has come from one of two places: either entered by a person, or randomly filled in by the computer. You just need to find the one string of numbers in this thing that habitually repeats, and bingo, there's your password."

"So it's like a firewall?" V inquires, ready to feel ridiculous for even asking.

Silverhand shrugs, "I mean, I guess? More complicated than that, but whatever helps you wrap your gonk brain around it."

"And you're sure it's basic?"

"If a guy from 2023 who's never netran a day in his life can figure out how to crack it in twenty seconds, I'm sure you can do the rest from here, princess."

Okay, decent point, sarcasm notwithstanding. V shoots a sideways look at Silverhand and, when he doesn't disparage her, extends a hand and places it on the wall of code towering over them.

It's electrifying. Raw data comes rushing in unabated, cold and concentrated like ice injected directly into the nervous system. If V was still linked to her own senses, they'd surely be on fire by now, and it's not even five seconds before she withdraws her hand to recover herself.

"What, too much?"

"I'm fine," V's tone is clipped, far coarser than she'd originally intended. She feels a pang of some distant emotion she can only describe as shame accompany it, "Sorry. It's…it was just a lot."

"You good?" his question comes across vaguely rehearsed, as if Silverhand's only asking because he knows it's the expected thing to do. He doesn't seem concerned per se, but he also doesn't look impatient with her, either? V can't put a finger on his mood so she gives him a single nod and replaces her hand in lieu of getting more out of him.

This time, V's primed herself for all the information flying into her head. Numbers come and go, fast and intense but more manageable than before, and from there it becomes pattern recognition. She makes mental notes of which numbers seem to repeat the most, or which ones could be anything more meaningful than just random digits punched in by a computer. A birthday, the same number repeated seven times, someone typing in "8008135" as a joke because it'd be funny. Anything along those lines.

The first time V sees those five numbers in that order, she disregards it as some freak coincidence. The third time, she's started doubting. By the sixth, she's sure she's got her password, because of _course_ that'd be it. Immature dumbasses, "You've gotta be fucking kidding me."

"What?''

V throws her head back, heaves a sigh, and grumbles, "Password's 42069."

" _Hah!_ "

When V removes her hand, the gateway is gone. Actually, most everything is gone, and it's a few moments before the Net reconstructs the world around her into something new. She and Silverhand no longer stand on the rooftop but in what she can only describe as small storage room, the area dominated by one greebled blue pillar standing about nine feet high, threads of light twinkling overhead as code darts back and forth along them.

Silverhand strolls in first with his hands on his hips, V a few steps behind, "Classic, men after my own hearts. Glad to see Night City's never really changed."

"Gonk is as gonk does," is all V says back, so absorbed she nearly misses the dirty look he throws back at her. Her footsteps toll like church bells in those old movies she used to watch, hauntingly loud in the noiselessness of the Net as she overtakes Silverhand, approaches the pillar of data, and places her hand on it. A list of numbers appears before her— not code like the firewall, but sequential digits, starting at 10001 and continuing onwards. V selects a number at random and her vision instantly scrambles like a CCTV camera. An instant later it clears, but she's not in the server anymore. She's staring into a living room, watching as two people lounge on the couch with beers in hand, spacing out to N54. The image pans slowly over to the left, then back to the right, like a… well, perhaps the CCTV comparison wasn't too far off.

Exiting the cameras, V begins sifting through the rest of the system's interfaces. One controls the locks in every apartment, from the doors to the windows to the personal safe that each one comes with (and V makes a mental note to take her things outta her own safe if she ever gets back to Megabuilding 10). Another contains incident logs, files upon files upon files of mostly unanswered inquires sorted by month, ranging from minor things like passcode changes to things V would've thought better for the goddamn NCPD to handle. Like Samantha Navarro in apartment 22047, for example, who had an ex-input stalking her for the better part of three months with no one in the building raising a finger to help her. Little things like that. Small moments in time that prove what V's always known deep in her bones— eddies don't buy happy endings in this goddamn city.

Eventually, V opens a folder that provides something far more valuable: files of lease data and payment information, all sorted in alphabetical order. She makes a flicking motion with her hands and watches the list scroll down idly, drifting past the A's, B's, and C's. V silently reads each surname as they float past, waiting for the only one that matters. Her heart'd surely be thrumming out of her chest by now if she still had one in cyberspace. Dempsey… Derrickson… DeSantis… Devine… Dias… Dierks…

"…He's not here."

Anxiety mounting, V finds herself staring at the space between DeSantis and Devine. 'Dexter', 'DeShawn', not even simply 'Dex'; he's nowhere to be found amongst the building's occupants. She skims down the list to the ends of the D's and finds nothing, and when she finds nothing, she keeps going down. E's, F's, G's, H's, further and further until V's hyperventilating somewhere around the K's.

Where is he!? Where _is_ the bastard!?

Letting out a ferocious snarl, she pounds her fists against the pillar, unable to stop once she starts. Is this it? Is this what she's become? V, Bakker scout turned up-and-coming merc turned undead harbinger of vengeance, reduced to a little girl throwing a tantrum inside a computer monitor. How goddamn childish, yet does that stop her? Her fist soon hammers out a whole album against the server but it's not like there's some miracle answer hidden in the tune. Everything she'd lost, all the shit she'd endured just for this one opportunity, and Dex isn't even in the fucking system!? He's gone? Never here to begin with? What? _What!?_ Why can't she get just one _fucking break!?_

And just like that, V's in the Delamain again. The sounds of rain drumming against the roof of the car so hauntingly close to the beating of her hands. Jackie's lifeless body besides her, his blood staining the leather, his suit, her hands. V takes his hand, choking back a gasp when she feels how cold it's gotten. The image of him swims, flickering to that of Kai, then to woman she doesn't recognize, and back to Jackie again. Would he have survived if he'd kept the chip in? Would it be better if she'd just stayed dead and gone? Questions without answers, ifs and ifs and ifs and—

No.

It's a test of her own mental fortitude but V forces herself to take a step back from the edge, because _no._ There's no way her luck's gotten this rotten. She couldn't have sacrificed so much to get here only for her intel to be wrong and for Dex to've slipped from her fingers. V's done with losing herself in the mire of her own misery and is certainly done with being so, so close to things and then getting her chances ripped out of her hands. Not anymore. She's seeing this through, tonight. Even if that means she's gotta burn this entire fucking building down to get want she wants.

It's a concept so unlike her that V needs to take a few seconds to recover herself, and she doesn't dare dwell on it any longer than she has to.

"Dex wouldn't have signed a lease under his own name. Too risky," saying it aloud doesn't make it fact but V's willing to create her own damn luck at this point. She uncurls her fists, scrolling back to the top of the tenant list, "If he's here, he's gotta be under a different name. Just a matter of figuring out which one he's hiding under."

"So how you gonna do it?" Silverhand could be mocking her or he could be entertaining her thought process. Just this once, V gives him the benefit of the doubt.

"He only moved back into the city a few months ago. I'm gonna sort the names by the most recent lease signing— three months or earlier. When I have my names, I'll jack into the camera systems. Search every single one. He's gotta be here somewhere."

"And if you're wrong?"

V doesn't respond to that. Silverhand doesn't bother trying to pry one out of her.

A mutual sense of concentration settles over the pair as she reorders the data by newest first. Pushing that aside, V pulls up the camera interface back up and starts scrolling for apartments. Silverhand watches the entire thing unfold with an arm propped against the server, letting V conduct her business in silence.

It's a long, agonizing process. Does time move differently in the Net? If not, V won't focus on how she's certainly spent hours going down the tenant list, checking the cameras of their apartment, and moving down the list when she finds nothing. Paranoia dictates that V leaves no stone unturned, no name untried. Several she even tries twice, three times, four if she has to. Some apartments stand empty, others occupied by one person, or a couple, even entire families. Still V scrolls, searches, scrolls, searches, and down the list she goes, spitefully clinging to some errant hope that the universe has a spare bit of mercy for her.

V's digital finger hovers over the next name over the list. She's about two months down—roughly seventy apartments of dead ends if she's been keeping accurate track— so next to come is some guy named William Wallace. Apartment #32158. One of the more expensive apartments in this complex, three rooms and everything. As far as Charter Hill budgets go, this is about as luxurious a place as one can get. While V goes to pull up the corresponding camera, she notices Silverhand from the corner of her eye. His brow's creased, looking like he's…actually considering something, and not just a cheap jab, "What?"

He dismisses her critical tone with a shake of his head. "Just a hunch. Got a feeling the guy's either got an inflated view of himself, or he's not exactly the King of Scotland. Go look at the place— don't wanna ruin the surprise."

Jacking into the cameras of apartment #31258, V's greeted to a living room that looks like it's been through a world war. The floor is littered with strewn-about screamsheets, scattered weapons and ammunition containers, what appears to be a katana blade, assorted fast food wrappers, empty cardboard boxes, and several half-filled suitcases surrounded by mounds of unpacked clothes. The TV's on, the glow from the screen the only thing casting any light across the space. V's attention flicks to the drawn blinds, to the muted television, to the forsaken feeling the place carries that she can sense even through cyberspace. V switches to the kitchen camera. PieZ boxes stack six or seven high, empty beer bottles arranged like castle turrets on top. The radio's tuned full-volume to some channel she doesn't recognize. Given the general disarray of the place, it all suggests a hasty arrival. Or maybe an even hastier departure.

She moves on to the bedroom camera, and V fingernails claw at the pillar.

This is the only room with any lights on, the soft orange glow almost ethereal considering the mess contained in the living room. Dexter DeShawn paces the room from his bed to the window to the minibar and back again, gold arm holding a martini glass and his holo between his ear and shoulder. There's an uncharacteristic dishevelment about him, what with his unkempt hair and his unlaundered clothes. He gestures wildly with the drink as he talks but V can't make out a single word he's saying. There's a crazed look to his eye, though, only intensified the more he paces back and forth until V can practically see the dejection dancing in his irises.

V didn't mean to gawk at her former fixer for as long as she does, only coming back to her senses when Dex hangs up his holo and stares at it with a calamitous expression. A heartbeat later, he whirls around and hurls his martini glass at the window, and both him and V watch the thing shatter and rain down in pieces to the floor. Dex collapses on the bed, mouthing curses. Several minutes go by before he shoots a couple of texts, tosses the phone onto his nightstand, and pulls a small briefcase off the floor. From within, he retrieves several shards and a braindance wreath.

V pulls herself free of the camera interface in a frenzy. Silverhand's smirk greets her as she does so, "Told ya."

Too driven to heed a word out of his mouth, V hurriedly deactivates the cameras in Dex's apartment, then pulls up the lock system and deactivates those too. Front door, windows, all of them. V wants options. She removes her hands from the pillar and all the interfaces she'd been using glitch and disappear.

Now to get out of here. How? Don't panic, V, just think, think. Think, goddamnit, before your opening is gone.

Okay, if netdiving's sinking, then come back out's rising?

Well, better than nothing.

V closes her eyes. Tries thinking about rising. After some time, her eyelids flutter open and she nearly screams when she sees the great blue server staring back at her. She trains her glare at Silverhand, still leaning against the pillar and watching her stand around like an idiot, "You gonna help me or not!?"

His brows rise so high they threaten to disappear into his hairline, "You're _asking_ for my help now? Geez, V, tell me how those words taste coming outta your mouth _."_

"Don't make me fucking beg, rockerboy. How do I get out of here?"

"Why? You didn't even say 'please'."

" _Silverhand!_ "

"You're concentrating on the wrong things. Try breathing, moving your limbs, things like that. You're nothing but code and numbers down here, so you gotta plug your consciousness back into your body by force. If you're looking for a starting point, you can start by calming your tits and watching your mouth."

V opens her mouth, closes it, screws her eyes shut, and tries sucking in a breath. It's more of a fight than she realized— she doesn't need to breathe in cyberspace, after all, just like Silverhand implied. She reaches as far out as she can, trying to focus on where she left her body on the roof. The sting of cold night air pricks against her lips. Her fingers twitch, one by one by one. V doesn't feel her feet on the Net anymore, but she does feel the knife's sheathe against her ankle, her socks, her jacket, her necklace. Breathe in, breathe out—

Her first breath back in realspace comes as a shaking gasp. When she reopens her eyes, she's back on the complex's roof, shivering as the night wind buffets her chest. She's on her feet and to the staircase door in three bounds, repeating Dex's apartment number over and over again to herself. And if V listens closely as she descends the staircase, it almost sounds like the building is echoing it back to her, urging her forward. _#31258, #31258, #31258, #31258, #31258…_

Floor 31 is completely deserted, bathed in bright florescent lighting. Contrary to the adrenaline coursing through her, V moves as calmly as she can, furtively glancing at the other apartment doors for any signs of activity. She pauses next to the door of Dex's apartment to pull out Yorinobu's pistol and secure the suppressor. His door opens without protest, closing behind her when V steps in.

The living room and kitchen sit deserted, artificially illuminated by television screens and glowing bottles of Bolshevik vodka. As it turns out, the radio in the kitchen's tuned to a police scanner, blaring codes and crime reports into the empty room. The cameras remain dormant. V carefully picks her way through the trash and, heart beating uncomfortably somewhere in the pit of her gut, flourishes the pistol as she steps into the bedroom.

Dex doesn't pay her any mind. He can't pay her any mind. He's lying on the bed with his BD wreath playing, surrounded by newspapers and screamsheets and ashtrays and luggage. Silverhand glitches on one side of the bed as V tucks the gun back into her waistband. He leans over Dex like a doctor hovering over a patient on an operating table, pointlessly waving a hand back and forth over the other man's face, "Entire corpo SWAT team could blast in right now and I bet the guy'd never be able to tell. Still, not that terrible a way to go. Not bad to get off while getting offed, if you know what I mean."

 _Well, aren't you a poet,_ V thinks at him, rounding the other side of the bed.

Silverhand straightens up, expression sour, "A 'thank you' would be nice every once and awhile, V."

_Cry me a river, asshole._

And like the poet he is, Silverhand jumps back into her head with an eyeroll and a middle finger.

V climbs onto the bed and situates herself over Dex's body with her knees pressed into his biceps and her upper body bearing over him, blocking out the overhead lights. Her left hand rips off the braindance wreath, her right hand closing around Dex's throat.

Several seconds pass before Dex snaps out of the BD-induced trance and the danger fully registers. He locks eyes with her, wheezing out a faint breath. The anger and surprise in his eyes are quickly overtaken by the fear and panic of the situation. "Evenin', Dex," V snarls, tossing the wreath into the corner. "Remember me?"

It takes a little bit for the light of recognition to enter his eyes. Dex's mouth forms a "V…?" but no sound accompanies it. V leans more of her weight into his throat while she tugs out her personal link with her teeth.

"Shot me in the head, Dex. Fucking hurt, too," the words are pushed through bared teeth (she sees Dex's eyes flick to the bullet pendant and grow, if it were even possible, even wider). "Thought that was that, huh? That you could just leave me for dead in that landfill and end that chapter there? Well, too bad life doesn't fucking work that way."

She can see his bewilderment, how he's frantically trying to put two and two together and the pieces just aren't fitting into place. V'd certainly been stone dead when he'd brought her to the junkyard and Dex can't seem to figure out the miracle behind her resurrection. A spark of amusement flares to life in the back of her mind; V can't tell if it belongs to her or Silverhand.

Weeks of pent-up bitterness and hatred ooze from V's words as she rams her personal link into Dex's neuralport, "You got my best friend killed. You tried to kill me to cover your tracks. You ruined my goddamn life," that last one was meant for her and her alone. It doesn't offer a single ounce of catharsis. "That's three fucking strikes, Dex, and that's three too many in my world."

The man squirms underneath her yet V's got him pinned too tightly for it to matter. Dex's biomon interface scrolls across her optics. It's overtaken by a large, yellow prompt courtesy of her cyberdeck:

>__UPLOAD PROGRAM [#45032-BU] "BUTTER"?

"And by the way, before I forget. Your little test in the limo? Blaze of glory or Miss. Nobody?" Her voice scarcely makes it above a whisper, "When I find you down there, tell me how it felt, knowing you died as neither."

>__[YES]

A tiny infinity lives and dies in the silence of V uploading the daemon into Dex. Dark brown eyes meet neon green ones, searching for any sort of mercy buried within her. No words are exchanged, no final rites are given, no mercy is shown. There's not one person in this room that's deserving of a swan song.

When BUTTER starts working, Dex jerks upwards. There's an unbearable heat emanating from V's personal link, a spark or two bursting from both her hand and his neuralport. The fear in his eyes is quickly clouded over by confusion and then agony. He's writhing now. No, convulsing's the better word. Dex's body pitches back and forth so violently that V's gotta brace her free hand against the headboard to avoid getting bucked off, a guttural rasp escaping from him as he fights against her daemon. The pain's rapidly spread to her now, and V tries not to notice that her left wrist's got smoke coming out of it. Blood freely streams from Dex's mouth, nose, and ears. It's difficult to tell if the man's conscious or even alive underneath her, what with his rolled back eyes and his rapidly weakening spasms. Dex coughs, splattering her with blood, not that it makes a difference or even phases her at this point. Her operating system's shrieking warning after warning about her overheating cybernetics but V doesn't dare back down now. Not when she's so close. Not when she's so damn _fucking close._

And then it's over. Just like that.

V doesn't notice when Dex finally stops fighting. All she knows is one moment he was thrashing beneath her and the next he, well, wasn't. She blinks once, twice, slowly sitting back. His skin's taken on an ashen look, muscles lax and eyes unseeing. Blood and other fluids run rivers from his eyes, out his ears, and down the corners of his mouth, steadily pooling into a deep red ring around his head. Dex is dead. There's nothing particularly grand about it, nothing ceremonious. He's just…dead.

Inch by inch, she rises. There's a reek of burnt flesh suspended in the air; from both from him and her, V realizes, because her left hand's nearly scorched black from the heat. Dark fingers of smoke curl from the underside of her forearm, forming shapeless grips on her wrist for a mere instant before rising and vanishing. The hush that falls over the bedroom is eerie and twisted. Thirty story apartments are marketed as heaven in Night City but that's for those who didn't know any better. Up here, the clamor of the city can't fill in the gaps, trapping her here in the vacuum of her decisions.

With that beautiful thought, V proceeds to puke her guts out.

At least getting sick after a bender was preceded by something actually _fun._ V's rarely vomited because of nerves or disgust, but there's always a first time for everything, right? All of those smells mixing together in the air culminates in something so horrendous V's gotta hold herself back from emptying her stomach all over again. Gagging, she stumbles to her feet, not chancing a glance back at Dex's body.

Turns out she's not the only one feeling nauseous. When Silverhand fully forms, it's with his hands braced against the window, a frustrated rasp escaping from him when the glass won't give way. V lurches over to do it herself without a single word, cracking the window open and letting the fresh air pour into the apartment. For a moment, the pair of them are draped out of the window, each adjusting to the gravity of the situation in their own ways. The cold stings V's face, yet she drinks it all in like a woman dying of thirst. Silverhand's heavy breathing mimics her own: rapid and uncomposed, each loathing what it suggests to the other.

He finds his voice before she does, chrome arm clutching his stomach. "What. The Fuck. Was that?" he gasps out.

"Home…homemade daemon. Jack into the biomon…upload your program, a-and watch….as it…" V retches, then forces herself to finish, "…as it overheats every single lobal implant hooked into the brain at once."

They glance over their respective shoulders at that— V over her right and Silverhand over his left. The man who used to be Dexter DeShawn stares at the ceiling with vacant eyes and mouth slightly agape. His blood's mostly dried by now, the crimson that halos his head offering an almost devout look.

Silverhand leans his back into the window, digging for a cigarette as he asks, "What about Trauma?"

She just melted Dex's brain into slop with his own implants; there's no way in hell he got a call out to Trauma Team in time. But she can't quite spit that out to him poetically, so V makes a vague motion towards the bloodstained body eagle-spread over his own mattress, and Silverhand seems to get the idea.

Night air and nicotine begin to mask the last of the charred stink around her, but it's not all said and done yet. Pushing herself to legs that struggle to hold her upright, V drags herself to the minibar, grabbing the first unopened bottle she sees. She opens it, takes the first swig, and pours the rest onto Dex's corpse. When she's done with that, she takes another and repeats the process, over and over until she's six bottles through and the place smells of bargain-bin liquor more than roasted flesh. When the last bottle of liquor's overturned and thrown into the corner of the room, V searches the nightstand, grabbing a box of matches and, after a moment's consideration, a half-open pack of Cubans. She retreats to the bedroom door, lights several matches at once, and tosses the whole box in. Flames burst to life instantly, and it's not long before the bedroom is burning up before her very eyes. She watches the scene unfold as a stranger in her own body, not anchored enough to herself to feel…

…anything.

V's fingers move independently, taking one of the Cubans from its case. She tries not to think about the fact that she's never cut a cigar before. Tries not to focus on how she knows exactly how much to cut, how they slice the end off with one deft stroke of her knife, how she knows to stick the tip above the flames and not directly in it, how easy it is to bring it up to her mouth for the first draw. It tastes like gravel and dead leaves, yet she doesn't gag as the smoke slides into her like it belonged there all along.

Silverhand glitches over as she blows out the smoke, glancing at her in an almost appreciative manner, but he's got the wisdom to keep his mouth shut for now (suppose that's something; coming from him, it's practically a show of charity). It's only a for a second, easily missed by the naked eye, before he turns back to the pyre. Each lean a shoulder against one side of the doorframe as the heat swells and the fire devours the last trace of Dexter Deshawn. V takes another draw on the cigar, then another, then another. She should stop, she tells herself. She doesn't.

"Better funeral than he deserves," Silverhand says. She expects him to linger for a little longer, but when he vanishes immediately after, V takes that as her cue to get moving.

The empty hallways carry the clack of V's bootheels as she makes for the elevator. The fire alarm goes off seven floors down and the lift grinds to a halt a floor later, the gate opening to confused tenants flooding the halls as they look to evacuate down the stairwell. V allows her brain to turn off as she melts into the crowd and heads downstairs alongside them. Several minutes later, she shoulders her way into the chilly night air, hood drawn, head lowered, following the cracks in the sidewalk towards some empty promise of salvation.

When V hears the first cop car, her stride becomes a sprint. Into the night she races, the stub of her very first cigar abandoned on the curb. So far above her, flames pour from Dex's apartment window, and if V hadn't once sworn to herself that she'd never look back, she might've been able to catch a glimpse of the ugly tragedy she'd never be able to outrun.

~*~*~

Sirens slice through what would've been one of Night City's more tranquil nights. They wail on through the night, slinging around corners one after the other. In the distance, rising up into the skyline to join its brothers and sisters, is a thick high-rise in one of the nicer parts of town, and it's currently on fire. One of windows in the top quarter of it is consumed in a hungry orange blaze, and it's peculiar enough that several people have noticed it even from Japantown. Some stare, transfixed, like they're moths weighing their lives in their hands. A few take a photo or two. Most just ignore it. It's Night City, anyway. What's one more soul lost to the ether?

Everything is always supposed to be quiet here, despite what initial impressions might suggest. Your existence is expected to be imperceptible from the moment you come kicking and screaming into the world. Wars are waged with daemons and tech instead of guns and fists: yet another of life's little sanitizations that the corporations like to parade around on their shoulders. If you die a quiet death, then congrats— you've won the game. The blaze of glory is a foreign practice here, one reserved for the riffraff unlucky enough to exist anywhere else. Worlds away, you're taught that one'd rather die a fierce and meaningful death than accept a quiet, insignificant one. One should prefer to claw the proof of their being into the Earth with bloodied and broken fingernails than accept death like the old friend they're eager to assure you they are.

But Night City isn't like that. Night City doesn't reward the loud, brash, or blunt, and it certainly doesn't forgive them. It's never been a place where spectacles mean anything, especially not personal ones. Individuality is the one thing not allowed to prosper here, getting choked, weeded, and ripped out at the roots from where it struggled so hard to grow between the cracks in the concrete. This is a city where grand shows of passion and feverous demonstrations of the human spirit are all just embers under a bootheel: harsh and swift, burning brightly in the small time they're allotted to exist. Night City's where the soul comes to rot and die, because what else will this city allow it to do?

And at the end of all things is her. An ex-nomad crouched behind a dumpster in an alleyway with nothing more than a stolen pistol and a rockstar terrorist crammed into her head. It's a battle to wrangle herself under control and it's one V's losing. Every single wayward sound makes her freeze up and each police car with their shrieking tires causes her to slink further back into the shadows, pressing her body into the cinderblocks as if she could melt into them if she pushed hard enough. Laureled in the reek of cinders and booze, V sits alone, tearing at her hair, waiting for her heart to slow down and her breath to return to her.

Indiscernible shapes of nameless people pass by the alleyway she's hiding in, their shadows like hands reaching down into the dark as they hurry by. She'd ponder her next move but with a brain producing nothing but static, it was next to pointless to try. So V waits. And waits. And waits. And waits. And waits. Waits for the people to go, waits for it all to make sense, waits for some divine something to tell her what to do next.

V doesn't look up it when Silverhand flickers into view against the opposite wall. He'd easily blow her hiding spot if he was corporeal, but he seems slightly more at peace with the fact that he's existing only as a passenger in someone else's psyche for now. Arms crossed, that permanent scowl etched over his features, right boot braced up against the wall, his aviators trained at her. It's only when another police car streaks past, the wet asphalt stained with the red and blue reflections of its siren, that V locks eyes with him. Neither blink, turn away, dare utter even a single word to the other.

A long time ago, V realized that Night City is bound together by little constants. Corpos and gangs stick to their own turf. Merc life runs on a live-and-die hierarchy. Women don't rise from the dead. Terrorists don't get new leases on life. And the golden rule, lest you forget: revenge is the only way you can get any sort of justice or vindication in this hellhole city. But killing Dex doesn't make V feel justified or vindicated. She isn't fulfilled or satisfied or proud or haughty or angry or superior. V just feels like a variable desperately seeking to solve itself before the clock strikes midnight.

Silverhand leans his head into the wall and breaks their game of mental chicken first, staring back into the street and watching the people pass her by. V's gaze drops between her shoes. He exhales through his nose and that's the most noise he's made since they left the complex.

This isn't a place for people like them, V thinks.

She should be dead. He should be dead.

They both should've fucking stayed dead.

Because this is not a place that lets people like her and Johnny Silverhand exist; people that don't fit into Night City's mold of mute uniformity, freely or otherwise. Could be this limbo between her second death and his second life is the city's final punishment for daring to break that rule. No directions, no purpose, no future. Night City has no room for variables.

With dreamlike slowness, V pulls out the pack of cigarettes, lights one, and takes a drag. Silverhand brings his metal hand up and rakes it through his hair but then abruptly stops, hastily crossing them once again. Somewhere in the distance, another police car races towards Charter Hill. On a spit of land next to the ocean, Night City stands strong and cold, neon lights twinkling for miles around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternative title of this fic is “V has a 16-Chapter Identity Crisis”


End file.
